Yeeeeahh, that month. Well, here it is/was! 

June 2013! The month that Doctor Who Fandom broke? Or was it the month the Anniversary celebrations toppled off their heels down the catwalk steps as the departure of an incumbent Doctor was leak- er, hastily announced? Maybe a bit of both.

VOID STUFF
It’s the hazard of over-managing your secrets, maybe. Nature abhors a vacuum, they say. And betwixt the announcement of Matt Smith’s hanging up his fez and today there’s been an ample amount of void-filling. So much so that you could base an RTD Dalek or Cybus episode scenario on it, in fact! But what does all this mean? Well, read on…

SILENCE WILL FALL?
One of the big issues is that in an absence of hard, factual news, flimsy, insubstantial news will be concocted or agreed upon. Nothing too wrong wth that if your business is obfuscation and distraction leading up to the main event, MAYBE, but this is June. Six months to go (or fewer, if you’re of a mind to correct my maths.) And the problem with fake or simply false news is, the more it proliferates, the more frustrated those hungry for actual announcements get. Modern media, including social media, feed into the game, substituting ‘scoops’and ‘exclusives’ for fact-checking and generallly outsourcing verification to the huddled, impatient masses. And selling advertising. Oops. Witness:

HERE’S ONE WE MADE EARLIER Part 1
Africa 90. It wasn’t a Live Aid follow-up! No sir. Look, it’s not too recent any more and lord knows the rumour had had more deaths and resurrections than Davros – it’s the Borad of missing episode rumours! The story that, allegedly up to ninety classic episodes were found in recent years in Africa, shipped to the UK and left a paper trail of freight manifests so compelling it took in Ian Levine and prompted a literal roller-coaster ride in unofficial missing ‘sodes forums is not the stuff of legend, if not actual fact. Was it a hoax generated by brilliant but truly evil fans with a couple of years up their sleeves? Apparently. Were we all furoius and broken-hearted when the collateral extended beyond those it was intended to ensnare? Probably…

…but was it also the single-most nail-biting thing to have unfolded over the Anniversary year to date, eclipsing even the official show in its twists and turns? You betcha. 

Let’s say this now: 2013 has been a stink-fest for actual new, exciting Who-related news. You can keep your stamp sets and minted coins; thirty days (oh, correct my maths, go on!) on from the reality of Smith’s successor disappearing in the fug of bookie charts and Entertainment page sidebars, fake rumours are all we have left.

That and well-intended competitions for booty.

THE QUESTION THAT MUST NEVER BE ASKED!
Heh. Oh, The Book Depository. Well-intended askers of questions for Dr Who booty. How many episodes of Doctor Who were deleted, you ask? Even Richard Molesworth would have difficulty with that one – and said as much! They’ve since changed the competition question, but ho ho, it’s like Who Created the Daleks all over again!

BETTER EIGHT THAN NEVER?
McGann Tweets! yes, the Eighth Doctor starting making birdlike noises back in january of this year, and while we can’t possibly reproduce his first tweet (though it is a classic of modern inflective), he’s quite follow-able. Here’s his shout-out to an erstwhile nemesis:

 

 

Here’s his exchange with an erstwhile incarnation on the latter’s birthday (happy 70th Colin!)

 

 

And then later in the month a fan went and just asked him if he’d be in the anniversary special, and he twerted this:

 

 

What to say, eh?

THE SEEDS OF THE BRAIN OF TERROR
Big Finish brings you More Hinchcliffe! This we like the sound of. Hell, anything that evokes the Tom Baker of old without comedy Kraals we like the sound of.

HERE’S ONE WE MADE EARLIER Part 2
Look, I said this was old news. Fake Anniversary trailer:  Breakdown: Genius!

But to play us out instead and fresh from ComicCon, here’s Karen Gillan as a slaphead.

Ooh, missus!

This entry was posted on Monday, July 22nd, 2013 at 4:21 pm and is filed under FAST RETURN. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.