Are We Nearly There Yet?

I have eight bookcases and four CD racks in my living/dining rooms courtesy of IKEA. Doctor Who encompasses 5 bookcases and is creeping into the others. (That Complete History purchase my wife bought me is beginning to haunt her! And the Blu-Rays have to languish alongside the rest of television.) Two of the CD racks are top to toe Doctor Who and many of the bookcase shelves are taken up with CDs. I have bought every Big Finish Doctor Who-related CD. This includes The Main Range which started it all off: one a month from 1999. 240 releases later…and I’m still going. The Lost Stories were shows written for but unproduced on television; they’re all there too. The criminally undervalued Companion Chronicles – over 80 of those. Novel Adaptations, Stage Plays, Short Trips, Unbound and freebies sit alongside ranges of the Eighth Doctor, Fourth Doctor, Tenth Doctor, War, Third Doctor, First Doctor, Fifth Doctor, more. Then there’s Dalek Empire, Cyberman, Gallifrey, Bernice Summerfield, Jago & Litefoot, Counter-Measures, Charlotte Pollard, Sarah Jane Smith, UNIT, Torchwood, Class and the list goes on. I should say I probably have around 1500 CDs including the Target novels, soundtracks and other BBC output such as Nest Cottage. The question is: have I got enough yet?

When foolish members of the lay public casually ask about DWM, “What do they fill it with?” or even worse, “Is every page about Doctor Who?” I am wont to reply, “We managed to fill this magazine for 16 years with articles exclusively on Doctor Who when Doctor Who wasn’t even on the telly.” Arguably, if the show hadn’t returned in 2005, the magazine would still be alive and kicking, with covers devoted to the next Big Finish release, star interview or Blu Ray release. To be honest, I wistfully yearn for the days when the magazine was filled with articles on the four-act structure of a typical adventure or defining characteristics of a convention-going fan or press round ups from the 1960s. The point is, given the vast history of Doctor Who, there remain tonnes of unexplored avenues of discussion, archiving or insight. I still don’t know a bloody thing about Jackie Lane.

But the pursuit of furthering Doctor Who knowledge doesn’t necessarily equate to purchasing product. With a license fee, one can experience brand new episodes every year on BBC One. Why then do I have so many iterations of The Ark in Space in my house? Seriously, I have the Target book, a DVD, a Special Edition DVD with new documentaries, a Blu Ray edition with 5.1 sound, a script book, a Complete History section, a DWM archive feature, the soundtrack by Dudley Simpson arranged by Heathcliff Blair. I’m toying with the idea of buying the Target novel with the Steven Moffat introduction too. I had the VHS twice as well. And the great insanity of this collectormania is that I don’t even much like The Ark in Space. It’s over-lit and Part Two drags like a body-bag. Thank God I never had the laser disc.

However, with each re-watch or re-exploration of a beloved text, there is always something new to discover. Enjoying the Blu Ray recently, I learned that I needed to cut The Ark in Space some slack. Yes, Hinchcliffe and Holmes would do menacing far better a year later, but here it’s new and strange and in parts, very frightening. I realised that each episode has a problem to solve peculiar to those 25 minutes. Despite the white, white light, I did somehow marvel at those polystyrene designs and appreciate the intention far more than I have ever done before. As Who fans, we can enjoy a programme on its own terms rather than seeing only the joins in the sets. We can also enjoy programmes more than once. And here’s the thing, collecting shows is not just done for the sake of having them, it’s for revisiting and reappraising and witnessing them again with a good polish because we love them. It’s akin to restoring an old painting or buying a deluxe edition Yes album. One can always go back to them, appreciate them and discover more layers and interpretations. Every Doctor Who adventure is the same. I don’t particularly enjoy The Dominators but I imagine one day, I’ll look at it again and find in it something good. I’ve even re-bought Big Finish CDs as super-expensive but cover-lickingly beautiful vinyl editions.

I am quite aware that somehow the Doctor Who collection has become out of control. I have far too many books, more than I can ever read, but I love having them. “I like seeing them on the shelf but I never look at them,” said Tom Baker in 1999. Sometimes, a book can simply ooze grandeur. I only have to pick up a copy of The Also People or Blacklight or The Scales of Injustice to know how brilliant and special they are. I don’t actually need to read them again. The OCD gene is admittedly an itch that needs scratching though. A friend gifted me his copy of Lungbarrow for my 30^th birthday in an excessively kind act for which I’ll be forever grateful. So those gaping holes in the Virgin novels are now those other rare beasts: The Dying Days and So Vile a Sin. Oh, for a charity shop with good stuff in it; those tiny gaps gnaw away at my soul daily! I’d also like a copy of ..ish with the correct number on the sleeve, a couple of Titan script-books I never picked up, and The Second Doctor Handbook. But these purchases would be gluttony indeed for a man with three girls and a loving and lovely, ever-patient wife to support!

As 2019 approaches, it looks like it might be an even bigger year for Bigger Finish and this year was tight enough as it is. Can I bear to say no to a few boxsets? I’m sure I’ll find a way to get my grubby little protuberances on them. It just means I’ll need a new CD rack by February. And eventually a spare wall. (For the record, there are very few Big Finish releases I don’t actively enjoy – miraculous, given the scale of the output - so I’m justifying the expense with an enjoyment:expenditure ratio.) In the meantime, I might actually finish The Also People. 

JH