RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Media The Official Doctor Who thread

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April 20, 2005 -

Doctor Who and the Accountants of Doom:

Now that the BBC have finally officially admitted that Casanova star David Tennant will be the tenth actor to play the lead role of the Doctor, more information is getting out about some of the specifics of the deal made with the actor.

It has been widely reported that departing Doctor, Christopher Eccleston, took home 600,000 UK pounds (roughly $1.5 million) to play the lead in the series for one season. With many shows at the BBC under pressure to reduce their budgets for the next year, including Doctor Who, people connected with the series have been telling the press that from a budget standpoint they were secretly relieved that Eccleston decided to leave. New Doctor David Tennant is set to make only about $576,000 for the second series of Russell T. Davies' revived version of the series.

Meanwhile, Doctor Who continues to enjoy an effects budget larger than any other time in the series' history with every cent of it showing up on screen. From the space platform seen in the second episode, The End of the World, to the alien spaceship crashing into Big Ben in last Saturday's episode, Aliens of London, UK effects shop The Firm are making their presence felt in the new series.

According to the ratings and the international sales to every major market in the world except the United States, the money has been well spent. With Tennant the BBC also get an actor much more comfortable with playing the Time Lord. A confessed fan of the series, David Tennant has appeared in a number of Big Finish Doctor Who audio adventures in supporting roles and hosted the documentary, Doctor Who: A New Dimension, which ran before the premiere episode of the new series.

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How Many Secret Organizations Have Their Own Web Sites?

The new series of Doctor Who has definitely made it obvious that they are not only aware of the impact of the internet but are more than willing to exploit it as well. A search website seen in the first episode, Rose, was a site designed to be seen onscreen but can't actually be used. A character seen in the same episode is found by Rose because of a website he operates that tracks appearances of the Doctor through history.

This week, a website for the supposedly secret paramilitary organization, UNIT (United Nations Intelligence Taskforce) played a part in the episode, leading to the question of just how many secret organizations had public websites. Like the search site in the first episode, the UNIT website actually existed, even being linked to from the official BBC Doctor Who website. Chronicling the history of the organization, the "press release" section even has a little fun with the early download of an advance screener for the series. Dated March 10th, the release warns about a computer virus called "RUFFCUT" received by downloaded "pirate" material received through peer to peer services, masquerading as "something they [the user] would most want to download".

No mention on the site of previous UNIT characters like Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart but the site does state that it was formed in 1968, which corresponds with their first appearance in the Patrick Troughton story The Invasion, which was also the second appearance of Nicholas Courtney as the newly promoted Brigadier (Courtney first appeared the previous season's story, The Web of Fear). Another section of the site notes a memorial service for members lost in "Project Waxwork" exactly 35 years earlier, which corresponds with an approximate airdate for the final part of the inaugural Jon Pertwee story, The Spearhead From Space, which introduced the Autons, also featured in the first episode of the latest Who series.

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