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Soon after I saw the Fox TV movie, I picked up my first Doctor Who Magazine and enthusiastically whipped off an e-mail to them...Hi! I'm a new reader of your magazine. I'd seen maybe two Doctor Who stories before watching the telefilm in May. As a child of the Star Wars generation, one look at Doctor Who's production values (during the Tom Baker years) was all it took for me to dismiss the show as cheap and hokey. However, I loved the recent telefilm despite its faults. As Gary Gillatt pointed out in the movie review in DWM 240, the directing and acting more than made up for a weak plot. For two hours I was enchanted, especially with Paul McGann's magical portrayal of a Doctor who was childlike and ancient, joyous and wistful, vulnerable and commanding, accessible and alien. Since May I've been rediscovering the series on video thanks to the local library (Doctor Who isn't on TV in my area). The movie opened my mind to the possibilities of the series' premise; now I'm able to look past the "window dressing" and appreciate the witty, literate and entertaining storytelling of the series — well, most of it anyway (face it, every series has some horrid episodes). While I regreat what I've been missing all these years, I'm enjoying the thrill that comes from experiencing something new and wonderful. I've also recently read a bunch of NAs and MAs, and was pleasantly surprised at the high quality of writing compared to most media-based novels. My favourite stories are the ones like The English Way of Death and Human Nature, where SF elements are juxtaposed against a historical setting. After hearing how much I loved the movie, a friend gave me a copy of DWM 236. It was like discovering buried treasure, since, except for the odd article now and then, there isn't much Doctor Who coverage on this side of the pond, and I've since bought every issue. As expected, your coverage of the movie was first-rate. Thanks also for printing photos that are (mostly) different from the ones that keep cropping up in all the other magazines! PS. Is there any chance of you reprinting the Movie Special? I was hunting for it everywhere until a dealer told me it sold out so fast that very few copies made it over here.
My letter was published in DWM 245 (20 November 1996) along with this reply from the editors...Sorry, Sharon, no plans to republish the Special — I'm afraid you'll have to embark on a back-issue-bin quest... The story does have a happy ending, however. A British fan who read my letter offered to send me a Movie Special! |
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