N.B. there might (or might not) be spoilers in this article!
1999 must’ve been a slow year for me on the Doctor Who front. To this day, I’m still catching up with the late 90’s BBC novels, the launch of Big Finish’s monthly range featuring the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Doctors passed me by and, towards the end of the year, I also missed Doctor Who Night.
Broadcast on BBC2 on 13th November 1999, Doctor Who Night was a series of sketches and documentaries culminating in an uncut showing (for the first time on British TV) of “The TV Movie”.
The sketches are OK, although one contains a particularly mean-spirited joke (that was cut from its eventual DVD release) and the documentaries aren’t bad — although, of course, still not as good as (More Than) Thirty Years in the TARDIS) — certainly worthy of a Blu-ray release in a future Wilderness Years Collection!
But the real highlight of the night is the ever-wonderful Tom Baker. The interview with him, sprinkled through the documentaries, in which he explains his realisation that the best way for him to convince viewers he was alien was just to be Tom Baker, is excellent.
Even better are his introduction and continuity links through the night. Indeed, it’s tempting to view his presence here as an early appearance of his Curator character from The Day of the Doctor.
Marvellous!
