Taking a cue from Mr. Christopher Moshier himself, I thought I’d do a piece on some of the more notable “unfinished” or lost Who fan films – some of these titles are legendary among fans, while others are relatively unknown. But all were intriguing enough for one reason or another that you can’t help but wish they’d gotten finished, one way or another.

5. DEPTHS (Broken Biscuit Productions) – The only fan film I’m aware of to use the Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston in the BBC series), this appeared only as a trailer, which featured only a small amount of actual footage, a brief clip of the Doctor (Matthew J. Watts) emerging from the TARDIS. The trailer bore a release slated of Autumn 2006, but it never materialized. It was planned as a six-part adventure, and publicity photos released at the time also featured a very attractive companion, played by Emily Brown. But apparently there were multiple problems with planned locations, and only a portion of the video was ever filmed. A pity, as the full-sized TARDIS prop was impressive, and it would have been lovely to actually have a Ninth Doctor fan film — the advent of Tennant soon became the permanent iconography of the series, and no one bothered to emulate the Eccleston Doctor once DT had taken over the role.

4. TIME AND THE DOCTORS (DAM Productions) – The usually quite prolific team of David Nagel and Matthew Chambers aren’t the type of fan filmmakers to let a production go unfinished; in addition to their amusing Chimera, they’ve also produced dozens of Who-related audio plays, and the delightful charity video Pudsai which brought together many fan-Doctors in the same production. But Time and the Doctors was the one that got away — a lyrical and cosmic story of the regeneration from the Nagel Doctor to the Chambers version, this was also planned to be the debut of Miss Samantha Thornley as the companion Sammy. Young Sammy has since gone on to become Mrs. Nagel, and has appeared in a couple of DAM audio productions. According to David Nagel: “The real reason it was abandoned was because I wasn’t happy with how short the film was; filming was a difficult process, the noise levels were atrocious, as we filmed next to a main road (of all places) and I wanted a sound dub that never happened. Plus, I never got around to filming Sammy (as Time in the void) until recently and it still didn’t turn out quite as I expected. So now the film is in a semi-complete state, special effects for the cosmic chest pains, the regeneration etc and a green-screen void sequence.” Nagel also suggests that he will one day assemble the footage and post it online as an archive piece, and stresses that he no longer considers this “canon” for the Nagel/Chambers regeneration. “TatD has been replaced by a bigger, better, more substantial plot, but only involving the one Doctor, until the regeneration.” The evocative black-and-white trailer features a lovely and haunting piano arrangement of the famous theme tune (by Anthony Perry), and some nifty phase-shifting effects, but is available only as a low-res file from the early days of the century.

3. THE CHURCHTOWN INCIDENT (Timebase Productions) – Timebase is one of the most respected names in Doctor Who fan filmdom, but their last two productions bear the stigma of never having been formally released. The Hidden Face, at least, was largely completed and a rough assembly played at several conventions in the early 2000s. But The Churchtown Incident remains legendary as the great “lost” Timebase film. It told the story of an idyllic semi-industrial planet being invaded by the war-like Sontarans, who are using the natives as guinea pigs for alien implants. Featuring Rupert Booth and Deborah Reilly as the Doctor and Amaryllis, only half of the feature was ever shot. But, this footage was used to compile a very impressive-looking trailer which displayed not only a full Sontaran costume and mask, but the interior of a Sontaran spaceship, and some good-looking futuristic weapons. Although some close to the production have claimed some reservations about the actual script, The Churchtown Incident is probably among the most widely-seen “unfinished” trailers, and one many fans would love to have a chance to see.

2. TIME STALKERS (Mendicant Productions) – The fabled followup to Time and Again seemed doomed from the very beginning. There were personality conflicts that led to the replacing of lead actor Dennis Kuhn with Paul Christopher (making this the first fan film in which the Doctor and the Master were played by the same actor, an intriguing notion that never quite came to fruition), and logistical problems exacerbated by director Ryan Thorson’s imminent entry into the military. As with Churchtown, only about half of the script was ever filmed, and the video’s renown is based on production photos, artwork, and a brief trailer that was featured on the long-since-vanished website. The forthcoming Special Edition DVD of Time and Again also features a couple of brief clips from Time Stalkers, but like Churchtown, there’s very little hope of this one ever being completed, and the project remains a sore spot for just about everyone involved.

1.DEVIOUS – (Devious Productions) Easily the most famous and infamous “unfinished” Doctor Who vid, the Devious gang still maintain that the epic fan video will be finished someday soon, even though it has been in production for more than fifteen years at this point. Patterned after the old six-part serials, this tells of an “interim” Doctor set between the second and third incarnations, who is sent to an isolated planet to undergo a series of tests, but is soon pursued by the Daleks, via impressive full-scale working models that were built especially for the production. Though the project is notable in many ways, the most important and obvious of these is the appearance of Jon Pertwee, who played the Third Doctor in the BBC series, and makes a brief appearance at the conclusion of the story; this footage was in fact recently included on an official BBC DVD of “The War Games,” and constituted Pertwee’s last acting work before his untimely death in 1996. Also of note is the fact that both the full-size Daleks and the impressive TARDIS control room were borrowed by the BBC for the Comic Relief charity spoof The Curse of Fatal Death, written by current show-runner Steven Moffat, and starring Rowan Atkinson, Jim Broadbent, Joanna Lumley, and Hugh Grant, all playing various incarnations of the Doctor. Devious has long been on the forefront of fan anticipation, and tons of photographs, a trailer, and a fairly detailed website have been pored over by Who-geeks for years. But progress on the project has been worse than glacial, and many believe it will simply never be finished. Even if it is, the producers have hinted that they may not even release it for public consumption, and keep it for their own private viewing. This would be a shame, of course, but would also probably preserve its status as the #1 “unseen” Who fan vid of all time.

Click here to view the embedded video.

JE Smith is a forty-something guy living in the wilds of Texas, USA, who loves Doctor Who and loves fan films. He is currently a writer of film and DVD reviews for the media website Pop Syndicate, and is contemplating making his own DW fan film in the near future.

The same is true of virtually any genre of fan film, although not all subsets have the sheer overwhelming numbers of the SW set. And really: Doctor Who fan films have a perceived advantage over other styles; elaborate special effects are optional, and even the character himself, with his seemingly endless regenerations, is open to a wide range of interpretation. You don’t even have to painstakingly recreate a TV costume (although many do) to embody this iconic character. You just need a good script, some decent actors, and a sense of wonder, and DW fan film fans will likely go along for the ride.

In that spirit, for our third installment, I offer a primer for Doctor Who fan films: listed below are six flicks that will give you a good overview of some of the better offerings this subsection has to offer. This is not necessarily an “all time best” list, though many of these would certainly belong on such a roll call. In fact, some of the very best DW fan films are still not available on the web, while others are only available as downloads. Still others are important enough that I plan to devote an entire column to them in the future. But these vids represent titles that anyone interested in exploring this world should start with.

Broken Doors (1987) – Seattle filmmaker Ryan K. Johnson made four Doctor Who fan films in the 1980s, and was quite possibly the very first director to cast a female in the role of the Doctor. This, the fourth and final of his Who fan vids, is distinctly the best, a surreal story set in a dangerous netherworld in which the Doctor and her faithful companion Carl try to make their way through a series of tests.

Victimsight (2009) – An excellent example of a new breed of higher-gloss/high-aspiration Who fan film, this Canadian production has strong echoes of the recent BBC series, but retains a distinct identity and is sharply directed by Eldon Letkeman. Shot in hi-def, Victimsight is colorful and engaging.

The Schrödinger Effect (2008) – No list of this sort would be complete without mention of Chris Hoyle, a Leeds-UK-based vid-maker who has been churning out enthusiastic Who fan films since the early 1990s. His most recent production is also his most polished, with Hoyle’s classic Doctor revisiting his old friend, Charlotte (the charming Emma Bone), who then find themselves pursued by hostile forces. With outstanding SFX by Shivering Cactus, and a guest-appearance by a rather “big name” in Who circles, Schrödinger is way cool.

Deconstruction (2005) – A rare beast: a Doctor Who fan film that doesn’t feature the Doctor. Deconstruction is the product of the prolific Westlake Films fan group in the UK, and features an almost dialogue-free story about a Cyberman invasion of an isolated asteroid. Kevin Hiley provides eye-popping special effects, while John Isles contributes a haunting performance as the last man alive on the rock.

Time and Again (1999) – A recut/revamped Special Edition of this fan-classic is on the horizon, but there’s still plenty of reason to check out the original version of a fan film that has truly made its mark. A rare feature-length production that holds interest throughout, this boasts notable performances by Dennis Kuhn as the Doctor and Paul Christopher as his arch-enemy the Master. A must-see.

Fire and Ice (2009) – Making quite a splash in the DW fan film community, the first episode of Doctor Who: An Unofficial Fan Series aspires to be the Star Trek: New Voyages of the Who set. Strong performances (especially Jennifer Richman as Alice) and finely-tuned CG effects make this about as much like the “real” series as you could ask for. And, if all turns out well, there’ll eventually be twelve more just like it.

JE Smith is a forty-something guy living in the wilds of Texas, USA, who loves Doctor Who and loves fan films. He is currently a writer of film and DVD reviews for the media website Pop Syndicate, and is contemplating making his own DW fan film in the near future.

One of the most welcoming and gung-ho members of this community was one Adam Manning of the UK, who, along with his cohorts in the aptly-named Cheeky Monkey Pictures! group, had already posted the first episode of their epic fan film Tyranny of the Daleks. Like many first efforts, Episode 1 of Tyranny is fairly rough around the edges, but full of verve and surprisingly good performances, along with some pretty slick-looking CGI effects. As Episodes 2 and 3 made their debut in later months (and years), it was obvious that the confidence and filmmaking style of the CMP! band (which includes Adam’s wife Alison, co-star Lizzie McWilliams, and her husband Matt, who serves as director and primary cameraman) was increasing by leaps and bounds. But the epic remains unfinished, and almost two years have passed now since the third installment debuted. Manning, a crime-fighting barrister by day (that’s a lawyer to us Americans), has had to contend with computer crashes and a steep learning curve on a new CGI program in his valiant effort to bring Tyranny to a rousing conclusion – as well as squeezing in side projects like their amusing spoof Henry V: Champion of Saturn. We posed ten questions to Herr Manning about his Tyranny and its future.

1. What’s the earliest Doctor Who episode you remember seeing? Why do you think the series has had such a profound effect on you?

The earliest episode of Doctor Who I distinctly remember seeing is “Destiny of the Daleks” (1979). I remember, at the time, having mixed feelings about it. I loved the initial buildup, the Doctor becoming trapped and reading a book on Astrobiology to pass the time. I managed to get hold of a rather thick paperback on Astrobiology myself which I habitually kept in my coat pocket too (not bad for an 8 year old – one by Fred Hoyle actually). I remember thinking whilst the story had merits, sending the Daleks out as effectively suicide bombers was a bit weak and not helped by how banged-about they looked. The Movellans were just cheap and disappointing for aliens. It just left me a little deflated after the exciting build up of having the Daleks return.

I’m much more positive about it as a story now when I watch it. The scenes of Romana being tortured are quite effective, given the broadly brushed and outlandish sci-fi setting. The actor brought into play Davros gives it a good go, impressive considering his predecessor had given such an extraordinary performance in “Genesis of the Daleks.” Romana’s regeneration scene is amusingly whimsical in a way that cleverly offsets the rest of the story’s matter of fact grimness. What I mostly enjoyed about the opening scenes on Skaro was due in part to the involvement of Douglas Adams in the story and something I would grow to really enjoy in later Who stories and Hitchhikers. The Movellans, I would realize, were an attempt to make the story look contemporary and exciting by styling them on the then current glamorous disco fashions and made for a rather fabulous, if incongruous, race of androids.

I clearly watched Doctor Who before “Destiny”; I have distinct memories of the Mummies from “Pyramids of Mars” for example, but that was the first story I really absorbed and was able to follow fully.

2. Please explain your obsession with Rupert Booth!

It is quite true to say that I am obsessed with Rupert Booth. To me he is the true official Doctor of the interregnum between the classic and new series, perhaps even more so than Paul McGann. It all goes back to 2000 and 2001 when we as a group first became interested in the idea of making a Doctor Who fan film. One of the most widely known groups in this field is Timebase Productions. We were able to obtain VHS copies (see this goes back a few years now!) of all four of the major Timebase films and watched them with avid interest. Like many people, something about them seemed to resonate with what was most enjoyable about the original series: the sense of intrigue, the fascination with the surreal and mysterious. Rupert’s performance was obviously an important part of this. To be brief, and you have to watch the films to understand this, but it is right to say that Rupert manages to carry off the very difficult task of being a Doctor without just acting in a “Doctorish” manner, without just being a rather eccentric man in eccentric clothes. In retrospect it’s quite clever then that the first time we see his Doctor, he’s not in Doctor style clothes or indeed clearly in his full Doctor mode. This cutting away of the normal Time Lord props helps build up his character as being very much his own creation. His Doctor is very much in the mould of the Doctors of the original series without just being a caricature or impression or copycat play act.

As the Timebase Who fan films progress, we also see that Rupert’s Doctor has to deal with things the original series’ Doctors didn’t, pre-configuring or anticipating themes now found in the new series. Also physically he looks the part, with his long hair and the striking outfit of his dinner suit. It also helps that Rupert is a very natural comic actor, which adds to the enjoyment of watching them.

Over the years, I have got to know Rupert well and have to say that in addition to all this he is also a wonderful chap, thoughtful, kind, very humorous and generous. A delight to know and it pleases me no end that through making our fan films I have to come to know him as a friend.

3. Had you made any films (fan or otherwise) before Tyranny?

In a word – No! Tyranny of the Daleks, or The Galentor Incident as it was originally called, is our first go at making a film of any description. Episode 1, which is The Galentor Incident, was originally all we planned to make, but we had so much fun making it, we wanted to continue the story further and that eventually became Tyranny of the Daleks.

4. What was the main motivating factor behind mounting your own Who fan film?

The secret here is that at first, at the absolute outset, we wanted to make a Star Wars fan film. There I’ve said it, it’s our dirty, shameful secret. Matt and Garry had seen some of the early Star Wars fan films, including of course Troops. This was in the days when the Internet was a very different beast from what it is now. Star Wars what fan filmmaking was all about, or so it seemed at first.

We reasoned fairly early on that actually Star Wars would be a very difficult thing to try and do as the production values were so enormously high. We were excited about creating our own special effects but to make anything even remotely fit a George Lucas-style vision seemed a mountain too high to climb.

Now, it’s not right to say for example that we then settled down on Doctor Who as being easier. It’s more accurate to say that we recognized with Who there was a different emphasis, which might make it more suitable for a first film. Whilst Who was also clearly a visual feast (or at least tried to be), the focus was more on intrigue, atmosphere, character and plot. That combined with the all-too-evident fun the Timebase guys were having making their films and also the Projection Room films as well (which were very influential on us too), made it natural to emigrate our ambitions to Doctor Who instead. Lizzie, Matt and I were all total Who fans as well. The Projection Room films suggested a positive approach to telling a story with the film. They were influential in depicting how to build up a scene with the shots and how to keep going and carry the narrative forward.

Remember, this was all happening at a time (around 2003) when the new series had not even been remotely mooted by the BBC. Doctor Who was, it seemed, a bit of an embarrassment to the BBC in those days – despite, in its heyday, being something the nation adored; the Beeb made it clear they had no intention of ever bringing it back. Science fiction like Who, the BBC would regularly say, simply did not have a big enough audience in these modern times. Fan productions really were, at this stage, the only way to actually see new Who on the screen. One particular day, “Who Fan Film Day” in the summer of 2003, actually made the news on the old Outpost Gallifrey website when three fan films including ours happened to be filming on the same day. From a visual perspective, fans had nothing to talk about apart from fan films and so they were accorded perhaps more importance than they are now. With the new series (deservedly) being such a success, there are a whole new generation of fan filmmakers out there now, and I am fascinated by this. Taking their cue much more from the new series, they have a whole different style and approach.

The internet has grown and developed so much over the last ten years that the good old days of sitting around waiting for a VHS tape to be delivered in the post and then excitedly slotting it into your machine and pressing play have long gone. Now it’s all downloads and bit torrents. Tyranny perhaps straddles both generations of fan films, being conceived and born in the last days of the VHS era, when all we had was the old series to inspire us, yet since being fully accessible on YouTube and Google Video, an effectively online series. It’s interesting that when we started, in no way did I envisage the internet getting to the point where this might be possible. When we started Tyranny, I only ever thought in terms of it being available on VHS or, at a stretch, DVD. It really has been a, perhaps barely noticed, revolution before us in terms of the power we now have to watch what we want.

5. How did you meet your stalwart cohorts the McWilliams’?

Ah, this is an easy one. I went to school with Mr. Matthew McWilliams, our wonderful director and principal camera operator. This was good old Hamble Comprehensive back in the ‘80s, near Southampton. I also worked for a while with Matt at Beth’s Restaurant in Hamble. Lizzie was Matt’s girlfriend, now his wife, and I met her for the first time on 23rd September 2000 as Matt brought her along to one of my birthday parties. I know this, as I am an obsessive diarist and write everything down. We played a lot of Twister, which is always a good way to get to know people, I’ve found over the years.

6. Co-star Lizzie McWilliams: diva or darling?

Darling. Even as a Diva she’s still a Darling. Not only is she utterly gorgeous she’s also a wonderful actor, far better than me, and always unerringly and absolutely spot on with her lines! Right from the start she’s always had fan mail and I think a large part of the attention we get is down to her, and rightly so! Always remember, she is far more clever than you are, and if you do, all her behaviour will be acceptable albeit occasionally incomprehensible.

7. Your Doctor is very much the action hero – how did you arrive at that approach?

I don’t physically resemble any of the past doctors, so an impression or representation of any previous Doctor was not a good idea. Nevertheless, I had felt that the Third Doctor might be good inspiration for a fan film Doctor, being a rather larger than life, flamboyant and colourful character. Also, the idea of a Third Doctor-style Doctor for me was influenced by a big story I wrote as a ten year old in which the Third Doctor confronts Davros: in the story, his assistant was called “Xafonix,” which I re-used in Episode 1 for the friend the Doctor and Romana are hoping to meet.

This also for me coupled with an interest in martial arts and kung fu films generally. It was a given that any Doctor Who fan film we made would have to involve some fighting and high kicking as a result.

And then, when we filmed Episode 1, it became very clear that filming action sequences was really good fun. We all seemed to enjoy the running about, jumping, hiding behind trees and general larking about that the action bits involved the most. So with the later episodes it was agreed that we would try and do more of that.

Another point is that in watching the numerous fan films we saw before and during the making of Tyranny, perhaps the one thing that seemed surprisingly underused was action sequences. A lot of the fan films we saw were essentially long bits of dialogue between characters. Which was fine, but we thought we could be distinctive by shaking things up with a bit of action.

From this starting point, whilst working on Tyranny of the Daleks, a theme evolved of producing a style of Doctor Who inspired as much by comics as the TV series. Whilst working on the computer graphic imagery in Tyranny, I was taken by the idea that we were producing Doctor Who as if it were made by Marvel Comics, which is to say a very much larger-than-life, broadly brushed approach with exaggerated action, angled shots and general production values that were bold, colourful and dynamic. This was something that only developed after we started work on it. To begin with, we hadn’t even conceptualised the idea of a theme or a style with which to make the production. It was only something that grew as we became more confident.

8. How long did Tyranny take to shoot? Were there different blocks of shooting?

As mentioned before, originally all there was was The Galentor Incident, long before the title Tyranny of the Daleks was thought of. The only thing anyone knew of as our production was The Galentor Incident. After finalizing the script during the summer of 2002 with a couple of rehearsals, we filmed the whole of The Galentor Incident on one beautiful day in the New Forest in early September 2002.

Then after the script for the other episodes had been worked up and the new name of Tyranny of the Daleks decided upon, we did loads of filming over the next three years. There were some further gorgeous days in the beautiful New Forest during a very sunny July 2003, including one great day, our biggest filming day ever, when three of the chaps from Timebase Productions joined us. These were Neil Johnson, Steve Palace and Paul Ferry. You can see some of them in Episode 2 of Tyranny, but there’s lots more of them in action in Episode 4.

Filming for Episode 4 finished in the middle of 2005 and then the post-production fun began!

9. Why did you decide to tackle all the CG effects yourself rather than farming them out to others?

Quite simply, part of the fun of making a film for me is learning how to do it all yourself. I really enjoy the computer graphic imagery side of the production and greatly value how far it’s come on. There are some wonderful computer graphic artists out there working on Doctor Who fan films so there’s plenty to keep you inspired! It’s also a skill I’ve been able to carry into other films that I’ve made for business purposes which is very valuable to me.

Spending a lot of time essentially animating Daleks using a CG package took me right into the mind of a Dalek. In making them come to life, you can’t help but be drawn into their world. It occurred to me that if you were a Dalek, your thoughts would be so crystalline in their purity. Being so evil, so clear in their views, so free from doubt or fear or imagination you would have such an unfettered mental outlook, such a dazzling light to guide your existence. As a fan of the show, I found it an exhilarating insight to be taken that far into their world. This concept of purity is of course very much part of the general Nazi ideology that the Daleks have always been identified with.

As well as the various comic strips, particularly from the ‘60s, that depicted the Daleks, I was also greatly inspired by the two ‘60s films and their portrayal and production values. I think this shows somewhat in the models we used. Whilst working on Episode 2 I eventually settled on the type of backdrop used in the original series story, “Day of the Daleks,” which is quite an extraordinary story in many ways. The moderately reflective walls used added a great deal of interest, coupled with flashes of mostly green light. The first time we see the Daleks in Episode 2, they are engaged in a dialogue about the fate of the Doctor and I wanted to really do something special with this and in the end settled on a very long, continuous shot as they travel down a corridor. It took a lot of time to render but I was pleased with the result.

One further point is that it was, whilst working on the CG, that the notion of a comic book style really took hold. This is where the occasional split screen shots come from. I wish now that we had started off with this theme, as it makes Tyranny fairly unique. As said before, we had no concept of giving it a style to begin with, but I wish now that when we had shot the footage, we had taken lots of extra footage for more split screen stuff with the real footage to combine with the CG. But then learning all this is part of the fun!

10. And lastly of course – what’s the status of episode 4?

Episode 4 you say – well it’s a constant work in progress at the moment. All the filming’s been done, its now down to the post-production… am hoping to release it soon(ish)!

I’d just like to say everything about Tyranny of the Daleks has been so much fun, so much enjoyment and really some of the happiest times I’ve known. It’s been, and continues to be, a long project but I’ve loved every second and it’s always been delightful that anyone else even watches it let alone seems to enjoy it.

Many thanks to Adam Manning for taking the time to become our very first interview subject! The first three episodes of Tyranny can we viewed here, and check out the very exciting trailer here.  Plus you can explore all of the Cheeky Monkey Pictures! output (including some bloopers and other silly bits) at their YouTube page.

That’s about all for episode two, but I was somewhat remiss last time in not linking to perhaps the best resource for Doctor Who fan films, the Doctor Who Fan Film Database run by our old pal David Nagel. More on this great site in the future, but for now, click on the link and do some exploring!

JE Smith is a forty-something guy living in the wilds of Texas, USA, who loves Doctor Who and loves fan films. He is currently a writer of film and DVD reviews for the media website Pop Syndicate, and is contemplating making his own DW fan film in the near future.

“We are not of this Earth. We are wanderers in the fourth dimensions of Space and Time – cut off from our own planet and our own people, by eons and universes that are far beyond the reach of your most advanced sciences!”

It is with very great pleasure that I inaugurate this brand new corner of Fan Film Follies, devoted to amateur productions based on my all-time favorite television show, Doctor Who. Like most other fan films, Who vids are the product of an undying enthusiasm for the source material, and also like most other fan films, they run the gamut from crude and unwatchable, to incredibly cool.

If you’ve made it to this site, and even further to this column, I’m going to assume that you don’t need any schooling on what constitutes a “fan film,” why they’re interesting, and why people make them; basically, I’m going to take it as read that I’m preaching to the choir, at least in terms of the basic format. Ditto for trying to explain Doctor Who. If you don’t already know the series, there are a million places on the interwebz better suited to familiarizing you with this fantastic, long-running show. I urge you to check them out.

I will, however, start out with my own personal philosophy, one that is probably shared by most fan film fans: these kinds of videos are entitled to somewhat gentle treatment, no matter what their intrinsic merits as “entertainment” prove to be. Given that they are created by people with no budgets, using limited resources, and scraping by without even the most basic allowances that even the lowest budget film takes for granted, it’s frankly a miracle they get created at all. So, while I will not hesitate to give a bad review to a fan film that can’t muster even the most basic entertainment elements, I’m not going to harp on every questionable performance, cheap prop or inappropriate location. These are things that fan film fans can and should take in stride. It is, however, sometimes a bit of a balancing act, but I’ve been a fan of this particular sub-genre for many years, and I think you’ll find me pretty fair-minded overall.

Anyway, a little bit about me: I’m a forty-something guy living in the Dallas, Texas area (but originally from Southern Illinois) who works in data entry and is married to a lovely lady named Barbara, for going on eighteen years. I’ve always been a huge fan of science fiction, comic books, monster movies – basically anything with a little bit of the fantastic about it. I love ‘em all. Probably my first real passion (beyond Saturday morning cartoons) was the Planet of the Apes series of films in the ‘70s, and I was also a fairly hard-core Trekker, back in days when there was only one Star Trek, and there were no VCRs, so you had to re-watch the UHF reruns a million times if you wanted to stay ingrained. And I did. I didn’t discover Doctor Who until it debuted on PBS Channel 9 out of St. Louis in 1983, with Tom Baker as the Doctor. I was immediately hooked, and the mania has only grown since them. I’m a moderate fan of the new updated series, but that’s a whole other discussion.

I’ve taken a couple of stabs at self-publishing my own comics, and have had non-fiction published in magazines like Films in Review, Filmfax, and Imagi-Movies. Currently I write film and DVD reviews for the media website Pop Syndicate. And, in the spirit of full disclosure, I should mention that I’m currently creatively involved in Doctor Who: An Unofficial Fan Series, an ambitious series of fanvids that aspires to be to Doctor Who fandom what Phase II is to Star Trek fandom. I’m serving as a writer and assistant script editor – but don’t worry, I won’t be abusing my new position here at Fan Film Follies to throw too much spotlight onto my own gig. This is an equal-opportunity column.

Oh, and the name’s Jeff, by the way. I adopted “J.E.” back in my comic book days, because there was already a famous comic book artist named Jeff Smith. For better or worse, it has stuck as my “professional” name. So call me Jeff, for heaven’s sake. It weirds me out when people call me “J.E.”

Whew, that was a lot of intro. It won’t always be like this, promise.

So – what will The Doctor is IN entail? Well, I’m going to try and keep things pretty broad, and not overly structured. There will certainly be news of upcoming projects and other developments, and reviews of fan vids as they are released. There will be interviews with filmmakers, and other items of interest. I will certainly be highlighting some of the great Who fan films of the past and I’ve been contemplating an essay or two. The only rule is there are no rules, but I will strive to keep this column lively and interesting. It will also reflect my own personality and writing style: while there will be some measure of objectivity, I see this column, in the broadest sense, more as an editorial – if you don’t want to hear strong opinions, you might want to look elsewhere. I have no problem speaking my mind. That said, and in keeping with my philosophy stated above, there won’t be a whole lot of bloodshed here; I’d rather celebrate than assassinate. But keep in mind that, like Cole Porter says: anything goes.

For the time being, I will be assimilating a lot of information from my usual hangout, the Fan Video and Audio section of the excellent website Gallifrey Base, but I encourage everyone to contact me directly with press releases, information, and especially visual material – I find that the best way to get people excited about your project is to show them pictures, and I’d like this to be a picturesque column. You can e-mail me at complexcity@hotmail.com.

Seeing as this installment is a bit top-heavy with set-up (think of it as the first hour of a superhero movie where you have to get the origin story out of the way), I’ll keep the rest of the content fairly brief. Onward…

NEWS: Anyone familiar with Doctor Who fan films will know the name “The Federation.” One of the most prolific fan groups of all time, they produced a steady stream of spoofs and other comedy-related videos all through the 1980s and early ‘90s – that golden age when videos were usually edited deck-to-deck, and everything was distributed via VHS tapes because, hello, there was no such thing as the internet. The Feds took a few years off, returning in 1999 with their first dramatic video Realitywarp, followed by Traumaturge (2000) and Shadowcast (2002). The Federation’s own Sixth Doctor, Steve Hill, has taken a bold step into the 21st century with the launch of the Federation Files Warehouse.  This new venture will allow fans to bypass the traditional snail mail content delivery system and download full-res Federation content directly. The initial offerings are modest, and include a raw AVI file for their 1986 spoof Doctor Who and the Holy Grail, and a full-DVD ISO file for Shadowcast (in five chunks) – reviews of both projects in a forthcoming column – along with Rob Warnock’s soundtrack CD for Realitywarp and The Reign of Turner. A site like this is exactly what Federation fans need, as many have been frustrated over the last few years by the closure of the ordering page on the Federation’s web site; it has been nearly impossible of late to acquire any Fed content directly from the source. Of course, you will need some serious downloading power to grab these very large files (the Shadowcast chunks are about a gig each) and trying this with dial-up is not advised. But it beats the bit-torrent route, and is a good way to acquire DVD-quality copies of these fine productions. I’ve personally test-driven the Shadowcast DL, and was able to quite easily extract the ISO file and burn a DVD that is (as far as I can tell) identical to the physical DVD I bought from the Feds several years ago.

COMING SOON: Reviews of the new Special Edition DVDs of The Other Side, The Millennium Trap, and (hopefully!) Time and Again, plus, an interview with Doctor Who: AUFS director Greg Sisco, and much more!

Finally, here are five links you should click, and watch cool stuff:

The Dalek Invasion of Skaro (full movie)
Doctor Who: Victimsight (full movie)
Guardian of the Solar System (full trailer)
Doctor Who: A Survivor’s Triangle (teaser trailer)
Doctor Who: Pudsai (Children in Need) (full film)

See you next time!