Updates: Classic Who, Series 7 Return, NaBloPoMo Plans

Sorry I haven't updated in a while, you guys! Time has kinda been scarce for me lately.

So, anyway, some updates.

First off, about Classic Who. A number of Classic Who episodes are now available on Netflix. However, not all the episodes are available, and they start with The Aztecs, nearly halfway through Season 1, and only go through Season 9. I also recently discovered that there is quite a lot of Classic Who on Amazon Instant Video, Amazon's video-on-demand service, a Wii Channel version of which was recently released in the U.S. Amazon's service contains episodes from Seasons 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, and 26, which means it covers every Doctor in the Classic Era except the Eighth, including all of the Fourth Doctor's run (Seasons 12-18). These episodes are all free if you have Amazon Prime; otherwise you must pay $1.99/episode to "rent" the episodes.

In addition to being available via Netflix and Amazon Instant Video, a number of Classic Who episodes have apparently been released on DVD in the past or will be released this year as part of the 50th Anniversary. You can find out more about this on the "Watch The Episodes Yourself" page on this blog, which I added recently and which tells you in great detail how to watch Doctor Who for yourself.

In other news, I updated the "Next Doctor Who Episode" part of the footer to reflect the most recent news about Series 7. Originally expected to return in April, it is now confirmed that the series will return on March 30th (Easter weekend). We also know that the next episode will be called "Phantom of the Hex."

Lastly, I am for sure going to do NaBloPoMo with this blog during the month of February. Therefore, I will be making an effort to post every single day during that month. Toward that end, I am going to be doing analyses of Series 1 and 2, including "Second Look" analyses of the Series 2 episodes I already analyzed. Since there are 28 days in February, and 14 episodes apiece in Series 1 and 2 (if you count the Christmas Specials), this should work out nicely.

I am going to make an effort to finish the other pages in the top bar this week, as I would like to start seriously promoting the blog, and I don't feel like I can do that with those pages unfinished.

I have also made a decision regarding the social media thing I was considering before. I'm gonna go for it. It shouldn't be hard to link to them from here, anyway. The template I use for this blog (the GlowingStyle Blogger Template from DeluxeTemplates) does allow for a bar in the top corner with social media icons; I just hid it when I initially set up this blog because I didn't need it. At the same time, I don't want to set them up willy-nilly like I have done with social media accounts in the past, so I am going to take the time to do them right. Look for them soon!

Classic Who: Update, plus Series 7 Part 2 Release Date

So about the "Classic Who" thing I posted about before. I finally got around to actually reading the Doctor Who blogs I subscribed to (I followed all the blogs listed in the "Doctor Who Blogverse" blogroll in the sidebar - I highly recommend the official Tumblr in particular) and learned that some of the classic eps will be re-aired on TV next year as part of the 50th anniversary celebration. Unfortunately, that probably means UK TV, and I'm a Yank. But hopefully I can still watch them somehow; either that or hopefully BBC America will hook us Yanks up with something.

Another thing I learned from the blogverse is that Series 7 Part 2 does indeed have an announced date: April 2013. I saw this on a couple blogs - including the one on the official BBC website. No more specifics than that have been given as of yet.

Oh and according to The Fourth Dimension (the special behind-the-scenes info section BBC One does for each Doctor Who episode on their Who website), the exterior scenes of the asylum planet in "Asylum of the Daleks" were actually shot in the deserts of Spain while the crew was on location in Spain shooting "A Town Called Mercy." I thought that snow looked weird!

Well just wanted to post that! Will get back to the episode analyses soon.

Classic Who

Hi there. In case you're wondering, yes I am going to write an analysis of the 2012 Christmas Special. In fact, I am probably going to watch it right after I write this. My family and I are going to go see The Hobbit tonight at this fancy movie theater, and we're leaving at about 9:30. I've already seen it - I saw it last week in the 48 FPS (a.k.a. "High Frame Rate" or HFR) version - but this time I'll be able to see it properly, without having to deal with the theater having a blackout and the audio cutting out in an important scene near the end due to the movie running over its scheduled end time. Hopefully.

So the reason I am posting this is because I found out something on the internet - on GetGlue, I think - that is worth mentioning on this blog. Apparently, the old, classic pre-reboot Doctor Who episodes - the episodes from the 1960's and early 1970's that were thought to be lost - are not as lost as we thought. While some of them remain missing (most notably the last serial of The Tenth Planet, which features the First Doctor becoming the Second Doctor), apparently some of them have been found. Some of the early episodes can be seen on the video streaming/uploading site Dailymotion.com. Dailymotion is basically like YouTube in that you can watch videos on it as well as create an account and upload your own, but less well-known. It originated in France, so I think it's more popular in Europe.

You can find these episodes by going to Dailymotion and searching for "classic who doctor who" or "doctor who classic." They have been put up by multiple users. I have not done a full investigation to see which episodes are available, though the very first episode of the show, "An Unearthly Child," is among them, as are episodes from the second serial that ran from December 21, 1963-February 1, 1964, which is notable because it featured the debut of the Daleks. These early episodes all seem to be in black and white, though some color versions of the same episodes are also listed. For the search result "doctor who classic," stick to the first 3 pages of results - after that it devolves into a list of totally irrelevant stuff. For "classic who doctor who" only the first page of results is relevant.

I mention this here because, since the episodes do indeed exist and are viewable, I think I may attempt to analyze them for this blog! It would be fun, right? After all, I added a bunch of pre-reboot Doctor Who stuff to my Netflix queue along with the reboot seasons, since there was some pre-reboot stuff on there.

Well, think about it.

And...it doesn't look like I'm going to have time to watch the whole Christmas Special before we have to leave for the movie. Darn. Guess the post on it will have to wait till tomorrow. Maybe I can watch half of it right now? Nah, I'd rather watch it all in one go. So tomorrow it is!

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas!