We’ve now had Time Lord Victorious, and Doom’s Day. What next!?
I think it’d be a great thing for them to continue doing these in a similar pattern, every few years, but I’d say there’s a few teething issues they need to sort. Both TLV & Doom’s Day had their own issues, and also high moments.
For me, I think they really need to increase the number of audios and have at least one at the very start of an event such as this. It will really help to bring the characters to life.
What do you want to see/hear/experience from future events, if at all?
I suppose the only way they’d work for me is if they were loosely interlinked (location, theming), but standalone stories. And have numerous new writers going wild with ideas as long as it fits the theme/location. They’d probably not sell as well as if they have The Doctor making an appearance, but still-
From an outside perspective, TLV, and Doomsday look rather messy, mainly as it reuses the same characters in different media formats. And then there’s the total pricing of experiencing the event in its entirety.
There’s 2 ways that I can see a future one working:
There’s a core story that everything else is built around, either tying into or spinning off from. In order for this to be successful, the core story needs to work as a story on it’s own, and be completely free. Maybe it’s a youtube series like the animated Dalek thing, maybe it’s a free audio series like Redacted, maybe it’s a series of short stories on the Doctor who website like they did in Lockdown. Maybe you have a doctor and 2 companions get seperated, and each medium follows the adventures of a different character until they meet back up again at the end. This way you can still get the expansive multi-media experience without it being super expensive
The other option is to make it an event, like the Flux or the Time War, but more intentional and coordinated, a sort of storytelling umbrella that changes the landscape of the universe. You’d have a bunch of otherwise seprate stories, whose only connection is taking place during this event, exploring different aspects of it. This allows writers a lot more freedom, and means each story is much more standalone and accessible
Trouble there is, it would then lock it to UK only as Redacted was not made available, afaik, out with the UK due to it being a BBC/TV License funded project.
I understand that events like this aren’t budget friendly, but they are EU content at the end of the day which will always cost or not exist. I liked with Doom’s Day how they made two stories free, the first and last ones, that helped massively. Personally I loved the idea behind both I just think the next one needs more tidying around the edges, and audios far earlier. More audios in fact, would be better.
I’m in the US and I was/am able to access Redacted
Yeah, conceptually, TLV and Doom’s Day could have worked, it just feels weird to say “I’d just make the stories better”
I get the cost thing from the production side, but I’m not sure how to do a multi-media thing without making it prohibitively expensive, or making a large part of it free. Maybe if it was extremely limited in scope, with only a handful of entries that you can purchase all at once in a bundle. Maybe the marketing could just be much clearer about which stories are the core that everything springs from. Maybe, and again I don’t like this as a pitch, make the core story interesting and standalone and engaging enough that people would want to buy it on it’s own, seprate from the event.
I hope they give it another try. I really enjoy the story in TLV, and the structure of DD is almost solid. If I were to approach it, I’d do something like this:
Kate’s Busiest Day
Starring: Kate Stewart & Oswald
Kate experiences a day unlike any other—one where she encounters almost every Doctor, each solving a different piece of a massive crisis. Due to the nature of time, she can’t reveal to each Doctor what the others are doing. Some of them cross paths, while others remain separate, leading to unexpected and fascinating interactions.
Throughout the story, strange crossovers emerge—perhaps the Eighth Doctor stumbles upon a cybermat, even though he’s supposed to be battling Daleks. The narrative is designed to be read in almost any order, though following the recommended sequence enhances the experience.
Release Order:
Short story (web)
Big Finish audio
Doctor Who Magazine comic
Novel
Big Finish audio
Titan Comics issue
BBC Audio drama
Something fun and unexpected—perhaps an ARG web page?
I also think that it is good to focus on someone who is not the Doctor, like DD, but instead of using a new character, focus on someone we know and like.
Totally. I do like Doom, but it really didn’t help that the BF stuff came so late. I think Kate’s actually a pretty genius pick tbh, UNIT in general is - it just works! I really hope we get another one of these, I am determined to do one from beginning to end next time.
I don’t think that any other publisher will do more comics. The comic industry is not doing that well right now, and I think that this is why we don’t see that many Who Comics.
I wouldn’t be able to get my Radio 3 fix otherwise 