A Brief History Of Time (Travel)
Or, 10 Years Of Online Doctor Who
This post is part of the tenth birthday celebrations of bbc.co.uk
I don't think I've been to a meeting, presentation, or read a document from the 91Èȱ¬ in the last couple of years that doesn't cite "Doctor Who" as a shining example of something-or-other.
Well, I'm about to indulge in the same vice myself, as I think you can get a pretty good snapshot of the development of the 91Èȱ¬'s web activity over the last 10 years by looking at the programme.
Prior to the -inspired revival, 1996 was the last time the 91Èȱ¬ tried out Doctor Who on TV, with a one-off movie starring Paul McGann in the role. Promotion was strictly on air and in print - there was no such thing as a 91Èȱ¬ Doctor Who web site.
During the gap between the TV movie and the arrival of Christopher Eccleston in the title role, there was plenty of off-air activity around the show. The 91Èȱ¬ had a successful range of books based on the , and Big Finish produced a , some of which have now made their way onto 91Èȱ¬7.
And then there were the webcasts.
"" was originally a pilot to carry on the adventures of 7th Doctor Sylvester McCoy on Radio 4. When it wasn't commissioned, it got picked up by another 91Èȱ¬ department, who, in July 2001, converted it into a webcast. Users could go to the much-missed 91Èȱ¬ Cult site and stream the adventure. Sylvester McCoy promoted it with , accompanied by the ubiquitous Dalek prop that seems to spend most of its time being - .
The webcast was basically a radio show accompanied by some animation techniques that older viewers might recognise from the original . Well, that perhaps sounds a little harsh, but essentially static drawings of the characters would fade in and out at varying degrees of magnification, over the top of a set of different background images.
During the next couple of years, this technique was repeated for "Real Time" starring Colin Baker (in a rather more sensible cartoon costume than his TV one had been) and "Shada", with McGann reprising an unfinished Tom Baker television story. Whilst it wasn't broadcast quality, it was still 'official Doctor Who from the 91Èȱ¬', and so with no real prospect of it returning to TV, fans were mostly kept happy.
A real leap forward occurred in 2003, though, with "Scream Of The Shalka". Made to celebrate the show's 40th anniversary, the visuals were produced by Cosgrove Hall and demonstrated that the 91Èȱ¬ was confident, with increased broadband take-up, that it could stream more demanding content. In fact, the animation was good enough to be broadcast on television via the red button over the Christmas holidays, and the same technique was used to reconstruct two missing episodes of the 1968 Patrick Troughton story "The Invasion" for DVD release.
Shalka remains the only appearance of Richard E. Grant's angular 9th Doctor though, because just prior to the webcast launching, . , despite their project becoming not the real new Doctor Who before it even started.
In contrast to 1996, when "Rose" was broadcast in March 2005, there was already acres of web support material. In the run-up to the show's return, the Doctor Who site had shown a new cryptic picture from the production team every day for several months, and there were streaming interviews available with key contributors like composer Murray Gold.
The web also took on a role beyond mere programme support, and became part of the programme. The 91Èȱ¬ produced fake websites for on-screen organisations like and , a '' site purporting to be run by one of the characters in the show, and there was a message for Rose on the site that kept . Ultimately, the .
Not only that, but the 91Èȱ¬ got a wake-up call about the power of the web as a distribution medium. "Rose" was , the first time that this had happened to a high profile 91Èȱ¬ production. Users couldn't officially watch the programme itself over the web, but they were able to stream the behind-the-scenes "Doctor Who Confidential" show on demand.
Fast-forward to 2007, and now the show, plus spin-offs like Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures, can be downloaded from the 91Èȱ¬'s iPlayer, and each Doctor Who episode is accompanied by a free commentary podcast to go with the programme. A couple of weeks ago, you didn't even have to be on the 91Èȱ¬'s site to watch the Children In Need special "Time Crash". The 91Èȱ¬ themselves had .
From nothing, to watching TV online, all in the space of ten years - that would have seemed more futuristic in 1996 than anything dreamt up by the script-writers.
Martin Belam is a former Senior Development Producer, New Media
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