AusCelebs Forums

TV sport shits me as well, especially the ones that go all day every day.

Back on Monday. I hear that ep 13 of Trial is really good too.

Oh well, maybe the possible development of digital TV multi-streaming will make it possible for the channels to each have an actual sports channel so they don't have to interrupt normal program schedules...



The first sub-story in trial stood out for me as the best. It was the first (& last) Rob Holmes wrote for the show in quite some time, the concept was interesting (although the fate of the Earth contriicts what is now established in the new series). The only problem was the really hammy acting but that was the problem with that era. It also introduced Glitz who I loved & had a Melanie factor of zero!

Well, Earth does get destroyed when the Sun expands - from memory (I think this was also mentioned in "The Eight Doctors"), the Time Lords fixed up Earth's timeline so that it never happened (in that particular universe, anyway).

By "The Eight Doctors" do you mean that movie they made about a decade ago? I didn't like that film & it did manage to get a lot of the widely known fundamental Dr Who facts inexcusably wrong (ie: the TARDIS having its own private Eye of Harmony installed, etc.).

No, this was the first BBC book of the Eighth Doctor written by Terrance Dicks. Not to bad.

As The Colourful Jester pointed out, I was referring to Terrence Dicks' book (the second Eighth Doctor book), which began BBC Books' run of adventures (the first Eighth Doctor book was "The Dying Days" by Lance Parkin - the last of the Virgin range, now available on the BBC Doctor Who website). In fact, on May 1st 1997, the night of the British General Election, newly-elected Conservative MP Tim Collins frantically finished off "The Dying Days", becoming the only politician "to have read all the New Adventures under a Tory administration". Source.

What you're referring to is the telemovie (known simply as "The Movie", or by some as "The Enemy Within"). In fact, the TARDIS does not have its own private Eye of Harmony - it is merely a link to the proper Eye on Gallifrey. By the time Gallifrey was destroyed in "The Ancestor Cell", the Doctor had installed a new power source completely independent of the Eye, which gained energy from rifts in time and space and, as Russell T Davies so crudely put it, was a sort of "sponge" in these instances.

But, as referenced in "The Ancestor Cell", a TARDIS (well, a Type 102 - Compassion - at the very least) can still work without a previously-installed Eye-independent power source or the Eye itself.

And as for the suggestion that the Doctor is half-human (on his mother's side)? Well, the majority of fans seem to have accepted this, as have I.

Yeah, I started getting the Virgin books & collected about the first 20 or so, read the fisrt Timewyrm trilogy, then that film came out, the Doctor changes, the novel writes went back to the BBC, Virgin cancelled all it Dr Who reprinting which meant that I wasn't going to finish collecting them all so spat the chewy & sold them all to a second-hand book shop.

I only watched the dreadful movie once & seem to recall what the TARDIS had was the actual Eye of Harmony (which is a load of crap). It sounds like perhaps these books are in some small part canon then. Well he would need a new independant power source if Galifrey was gone. Being that it was Omega the gave them their power by collapsing their sun & making it supernova, etc.

Have the majority of the fans accepted that idea? All the ones I've spoken thought it was a tiresome & hackneyed sci-fi idea of a friendly alien who is actually half-human that heralds back to Mr Spock, to possibly to endear the show further to what was at that time an expanding US audience. It also meant that they could also sling in the old boy meets girl, boy rescues girl & then boy kisses girl concept. Didn't work for me at all really...

The film, the books (both the Virgin and BBC Books series) and the Big Finish audios have been accepted as 'fact', so to speak. I can't exactly remember where, but I do recall the Eye in the Doctor's TARDIS being described as a link to the real Eye, rather than an Eye in itself. As you pointed out, Omega created the Eye of Harmony as a power source for the time travel experiments he, Rassilon and The Other were conducting. But, it wasn't Gallifrey's sun that was collapsed, but another star (quite far away from Kasterborous, from memory) which was captured and become the (majestic music, please, Dudley) EYE OF HARMONY! Omega was thought to have died in the process, but was instead pulled into the black hole (and so we enter the realm of "The Three Doctors").

Most Whovians have accepted the suggestion that the Doctor is half-human, as it helps solve a few things (his love of Earth, for instance). Unfortunately, the production team for the movie forgot to read "Lungbarrow" - which clearly states that Gallifrey was cursed in Rassilon's time, meaning that no Gallifreyans could have children. Instead, a machine (whose name completely escapes me now) is used for reproduction. Bits of this story are fading from my memory, so here's what I still remember. The Other had stolen the Hand of Omega and had a granddaughter named Susan. At some point, after Gallifrey was cursed, he sacrificed himself by chucking himself into what is basically the big vat of DNA that powers the machine I mentioned above. The Doctor is, more or less, the reincarnation of the Other.

All TARDISes had been banned from travelling back to the Dark Times, but the Doctor discovered the Hand of Omega, and it was able to transport the Doctor back to the Dark Times by overriding the built-in locks (in the Doctor's TARDIS - presumably a different one to the one he has now, Marnal's TARDIS). The Doctor exits the TARDIS (during the Dark Times) and, at some point, discovers Susan wondering around the Capitol - she had been left there by her grandfather, the Other, having been promised that he would return for her. Susan recognises the Doctor, but he does not recognise her. The encounter goes like this, and I quote:



The Doctor ends up adopting Susan as his own granddaughter, and he, later on, abandons Gallifrey (having been bored with merely observing the Universe from inside a TARDIS), nicks Marnal's ancient Mark I TARDIS (which was in for repairs) and leaves with Susan. On a side note, the recent novel "The Time Travellers" elaborates on the Doctor's statement that Time is fixed and cannot be changed - whenever the time travellers exit the TARDIS, they have changed Time forever.

I seem to have lost where I started. Anyway, if you'd like to read "Lungbarrow", a slightly modified version is available at the BBC Doctor Who Ebooks page - link.

`Unfortunately, the production team for the movie forgot to read "Lungbarrow" - which clearly states that Gallifrey was cursed in Rassilon's time, meaning that no Gallifreyans could have children.'

To be resonable, the book wasn't out for another year (maybe two) after the film.

`Instead, a machine (whose name completely escapes me now) is used for reproduction.'

The Loom.

It really has gone terribly nerdish in here.