By the third day of the LIWho Dr. Who convention, I was relaxed and into all the Who-related events. My cold was pretty much gone and I was among like-minded fans. On Friday, there wasn't much happening and I began to wonder, "What am I doing here? Did I waste $89 for an entrance fee and $300 for a hotel room?" But by Sunday, I was starting to have fun because I got to interact with the other Doctor Whovians. The first panel was devoted to the Peter Cushing Doctor and the two Dalek-dominated movies he starred in. The presentation was called Peter Cushing: The Forgotten Doctor and Chris DeLuca presented a plethora of info and artifacts. The Daleks were so popular they spawned the movie Dr. Who and the Daleks and its sequel Daleks Earth Invasion: 2150 AD, both starring Cushing. There was talk of a third but it never came to fruition.
Chris had an extensive slide show which also included artwork from when the first film was released in the States. Dr. Who was unknown here at the time, so many theaters booked it as a part of a double drive-in feature with Night of the Living Dead. He also had the trailers for both movies and (best of all) clips from the Rifftrax guys commented on both of the films (Two of my worlds--Dr. Who and MST3K collided and I was in heaven.) A radio series was proposed, but was never picked up. Boris Karloff was offered the role, but he turned it down. Cushing, the third choice for the role (we don't know who no. 2 was),was set but the network failed to follow through. The script still exists and Chris played a very professional-sounding fan production of it. The two Dalek films are so deliciously camp, it was delightful to go over them.
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| Ncuti Gatwa in Boom! |
There followed a fan discussion of the current new Disney Plus season with Ncuti Gawta (I learned the right way to pronounce his first name, SHOOT-ee) and Millie Gibson. The consensus was mostly positive with some quibbles. Like me, everyone was mystified by 73 Yards and we all loved Boom! (Not to be confused the awful Burton-Taylor film of the same name.) It was fun discussing minutiae about each episode and knowing what these superfans were talking about. I am kind of a low-bar Whovian, meaning I would watch the Doctor and his companions reading the phone book.
A new feature--for me anyway--at DW cons is something called the Celestial Tearoom. This is where 12 fans can sign up and meet for an up close and personal chat with DW guests in a small hotel room. Surprisingly there was no extra charge. I signed up to meet with Andrew Beech, a former BBC employee who curated the Dr. Who Experience in the UK and collects props from the show. Andrew regaled myself and 11 other fans with props from each Doctor including one of Tom Baker's scarves, Peter Davison's plastic celery, Sylvester McCoy's hat, a piece of the TARDIS, etc. The Whovians were whipping out their phones and taking pictures as if these were sacred relics or the Holy Grail or something (me included). My favorite item was the diary kept by the Doctor while he had amnesia (David Tenant). The journal was so detailed and contained sketches of previous doctors.
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| The Doctor's Diary |
I really enjoyed the Celestial Tearoom (they even provided tea, coffee and jellybabies). It was intimate and relaxed.
Then I joined a fan Meet-Up labelled DW PBS Pledge Drives Reunion. DW's first big push in the US in the late 1970s was on local PBS stations which would hold pledge drives to raise funds for programming. Who fans often volunteered to answer the phones during live TV breaks in the pre-digital age. I volunteered for the WLIW Long Island station and NJN New Jersey when I moved to NYC and for the Pittsburgh station in college (we got a tour of the Mr. Rogers' set). In NYC, I belonged to a fan club called UNYT (instead of UNIT). We would join up with an NJ fan group called the Jersey Jaggeroth and drive to the NJN studios to volunteer. I met with other veterans of pledge drives and those who remembered getting turned on to the Doctor through their local PBS stations. One fan brought a pair of red suspenders with the Doctor Who logo he received as a premium for a donation. Another fan told me about a website called broadwcast.org which listed ALL of the stations in the world and their history of broadcasting Who (somebody has a lot of time in their hands.) So I looked up my local Philadelphia station WHYY and traced its DW broadcasts. I remember they would show it on Saturday afternoons and Howard Da Silva would narrate the recaps for the openings. As a result of the discussion, filmmaker Keith Barnfather asked if he could interview me for a documentary on the DW PBS pledge drives which we did later that afternoon. So I may turn up in a Doctor Who doc.
After grabbing a slice of pizza for $5 (!) provided by the hotel, I attended the Two Doctors reunion panel, celebrating the 40th anniversary of this episode which featured the meeting of Doctors 2 and 6. Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant and Frazer Hines reminisced about filming on location in Spain. Upon seeing photos from that episode projected on a screen, Colin remarked that he and Frazer were quite different but Nicola had not aged a day.
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Then and Now: Colin, Nicola and Frazer in 1984
and 2024 |
By now the TARDIS was being taken apart and loaded on a mini-van, the dealers were packing up their wares and the con was winding down. It was wonderful re-immersing myself in sci-fi fandom, rekindling my love of Dr. Who. I look forward to attending more cons in the future and writing a blog recapping my past experiences in the 80s and 90s.
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| In front of the TARDIS |
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