Doctor Who has returned for its latest series this weekend. So it seems an appropriate moment to look back 20 years to when it really came back in the biggest way of all, with its first new series for 16 years and the start of what perhaps still stands as one of the greatest comebacks in the history of British television. If not the greatest.
That spring of 2005 was one of the most exciting times of my life. I know some might find it odd to find such vicarious fulfilment through the return and success of a television programme with which I had no direct connection, other than my passion for it. Most people who are in any way interested in reading this blog probably do understand it, but if not, you have to think about it a bit like being a fan of a football team. You have no involvement in the team or the game, no say over what happens, but when they win a major trophy it's bliss. It feels like everything. Everything you ever wanted.
That was what the return of Doctor Who felt like for me in the spring of 2005, and for many others, too.
I have very fond memories of that whole 18-month period from the announcement of the show's recommissioning in September 2003 to the point at which it finally arrived on screen in March 2005. It did feel like an eternity at the time, when I was so excited to see it, but there was so much to enjoy - the excitement of the announcement itself, the beginning of shooting, and before that point of course the casting news.
It's the casting of Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor which I have written about in the new Doctor Who Magazine special released earlier this month, celebrating the 20th anniversary of Eccleston's Doctor. I was asked if I would like to contribute to the special, I pitched a few ideas and I was very happy that this one was taken up, as I felt I was in a unique position to be able to contribute something on the subject.
Although Eccleston's name had been put forward by one or two fans in all the general discussion since the recommission announcement, there had been no widespread speculation about him becoming the next Doctor until the middle of March 2004. Then, just a few days before it happened, suddenly a leak suggested that he was the favourite and was about to be cast. I was astonished - he just wasn't someone I thought would be interested in the part, although I did suggest him as a possible candidate to play the Master in one online discussion thread.
But I was also incredibly excited, as having been a huge admirer of Our Friends in the North, in which he played Nicky - the character that, even at the age of 12 back in 1996, I found the most interesting of the four leads - I had followed his career with interest ever since. He'd of course starred in Russell T Davies's The Second Coming, which I had also liked a great deal, and while I remained unsure of how convincing the leak was, I was very excited about the idea that an actor I liked so much could be cast as the Doctor.
I remember very well sitting at the computer for most of the night on Friday the 19th into Saturday the 20th of March as first it seemed an announcement was imminent, and then it came - Eccleston was the Doctor. I don't think I went to bed until about 4am, following and joining in with all of the excited chatter on the Outpost Gallifrey forum.
And this was why I felt I was in a unique position to capture some of the excitement of that night. Outpost Gallifrey was unquestionably the main place for Doctor Who discussion online at the time, and when it closed down five years later I saved a few of the major discussion threads from 2003-04 period for posterity. One of which was the thread from that very night, as the news broke that Eccleston had been cast.
As far as I am aware, I am the only person to still have a full copy of that thread, so the only person in a position to write some of it up the the record. This was the idea which Doctor Who Magazine liked for the special, and it's the piece which has ended up being published. A little time capsule of how it felt to be a Doctor Who fan at that moment in the show's history.
In fact, the whole special issue is like that. It's a great reminder of so much of the fun and the thrill of the programme's return, not just the excitement of the very fact that it was back after so long, but that it returned so successfully, too. I am very pleased to have been asked to contribute to it, and I hope the piece brings back happy memories for those who were there in the build-up, and is an interesting historical document for younger fans who weren't.
