A Long Time Ago …

…Or so it seems. I was not quite 7 years of age when the world was changed forever by the release of a science-fiction film on May 25, 1977. A generation grew up with the phenomenon that was Star Wars permeating their lives – as much and more than Star Trek or Doctor Who. The former had exploration and transporters; the latter had a blue box shaped time machine and the perennial character who could change his appearance every now and again. Star Wars, though had lightsabers and epic space battles.

It was in the Star Wars universe, more than any other that my brother and I imagined ourselves fighting those epic battles. And then it faded as we grew older and Star Wars became a distant memory with only an occasional blurb now and then about the other untold six chapters of the saga. The only thing that fans had left were the VHS tapes and what eventually became known as the Expanded Universe – all the novels and comics that started coming out, telling the further adventures of all our favorite characters in the movies.

And then, in the mid-90’s, thanks in part to the EU, there were the whispers of the return of Star Wars to the big screen. There was indeed a New Hope of seeing more lightsabers and epic space battles. Star Wars was on the cusp of a comeback just as Star Trek was in its decline and Doctor Who was a decade gone (aside from the one-off attempt to kickstart it in America). Along came all the hoopla and excitement as it became more and more clear that a new trilogy was in the works. Then the Special Editions of the original movies were released.

It was a strange time then. We finally got to see scenes in the movies that had only been talked about up to that time, but there were changes – some minor, and some major, that just seemed perplexing. And of course, there was The One. It was The One that pretty much highlighted just how much it looked like George Lucas has lost sight of the vision that Star Wars had become to millions of people. The One where Greedo shot first. Of course there was also the Other One where Hayden Christensen miraculously appeared where Sebastian Shaw should have been. These were just hints though, at what was to come. The Prequel Trilogy had its moments – mostly the lightsaber and epic space battles, but the rest left many an embittered fan behind. Star Wars became a victim to what I call the “Jurassic Park Effect.”

In June of 1993, the movie adaptation of a Michael Crichton novel brought the term CGI (Computer Generated Image) to the forefront of movie going vocabulary. It was with Jurassic Park that CGI finally reach the point technologically that it could be used in lieu of practical effects in movies and television. It changed the entertainment industry forever. But of course, not all changes bring everything that is good. It soon harkened the time where special effects became more important than the actual telling of a story. Whereas the original Star War trilogy relied on the characters to bring the story to life, George fell victim to the JPE and allowed the special effects to tell the story instead of the people around which the events centered. The CGI became more important than the story, and thusly the story suffered because of it. But of course, that was only part of the reason.

 

Any writer will always have an outline of a story they are writing with a rough idea of how things unfold from start to finish. However, how that story unfolds along the way is often a fluid animal and many a writer finds how things occur in one chapter much different than their original vision had planned. In addition to the JPE, it seemed that George was trying to force the story into the vision he had, instead of letting it evolve as it needed to evolve. Of course, the limitations of time and presentation medium did not help matters, but in the end, the will of the creator caused his creation to suffer more than it should have.

So here we are, over a decade after the last Star Wars movie made its theatrical debut, and the hype, hoopla and excitement are even greater that what we saw in the months leading up to that fateful May day in 1999. There is some trepidation as the new owner of the franchise brought in J.J. Abrams to oversee production and direct the new episode. While he breathed life back into the Star Trek franchise with the two reboot movies, both left a bitter taste in the mouths of Trekkies who felt those movies betrayed the original vision and passion of that series. Personally, I think that using the alternate timeline/universe trope to be a lack of creativity on the part of writers in such aspects. In any event, I found it promising that JJ made it a point to highlight the fact that he was using practical effects over CGI as much as possible for the new movie. Of course, at this point, with the results of the advance releases already hitting the headlines, it appears that Star Wars may have gotten the revival, and treatment, it needed the most. I will still hold judgement until such a time that I can see the movie myself and see if the hype and the wait were worth the effort.

I have fallen to the Dark Side however, in the process of writing this blog. By nature, I am one of those people who will skip ahead and read bits and pieces of a book ahead of the chapter I am currently on to see what happens, especially if it is a book I particularly enjoy. I think it’s more of a desire to ensure I am not going to end up reading something that ticks me off (like a favorite character dying or a particular bad guy getting away). As long as the future of the story meets my satisfaction, I can continue to enjoy reading the story.

I have struggled of late to keep from researching more and more of the plot of The Force Awakens as I wanted to see the movie with a fresh perspective, untainted by knowledge of the plot and events that occur in the movie. This is especially in light of the fact that the main characters from the original trilogy play a part in the new movie – surely, for the sake of the plot and based on the events from the first and third movies we can’t count on all of them making it through the story all in one piece. Plus, putting together the events portrayed in the various trailers that have now been released, it seems that even the new characters may not entirely be safe. But I managed to resist up until now, knowing that with the advanced releases, the plot is readily available online.

But I have failed in my venture. Upon doing a bit of fact checking to make sure I got names and dates right for this blog, the temptation became too great, and as I found myself clicking from one article to the next, I was inexorably drawn to the page that would take me to the details of The Force Awakens. Hand on mouse, the compulsion to use that scroll wheel to continue further and further down the page became a temptation that I could no longer resist. And like Anakin Skywalker, I fell and learned of things that I wish I could now unlearn – like a young Luke Skywalker was advised by a diminutive Jedi Master oh so long ago.

I can only hope that when I see Disney’s and JJ’s vision of the new Star Wars play itself out on the big screen some time in the next couple of weeks that the vision has done enough justice to the franchise and this fan’s vision for those characters to remove that pit that has firmly lodged itself in my stomach.

The Fool in the Stands

So it’s Back to the Future Day. The day that the Cubs were supposed to win the World Series against Miami (ironic that the Florida Marlins changed to Miami a few years back). Well, while that obviously is not going to come true this year (though the Cubs still might have a shot), the results of last night’s Kansas City and Toronto game brought a slight smile to my face.

It’s not that I inherently care which team wins the series – though there was a time back when the Expos were still around that I was hoping for an all Canadian World Series when they and the Blue Jays had both made the play offs that year – but if Toronto ends up losing, that would be OK with me, and it’s all a result of the actions of the fans during their game with the Texas Rangers last week. The short of it was that the Toronto catcher was throwing the ball back to the pitcher and instead hit the Kansas City batter who was preparing himself in the batter’s box. The ball rolled into the infield, allowing the KC runner on third base to score the go ahead run in the game. The Umpires ruled it a live ball, after review, and thus confirming that the run was good. It seemed that there were few who disagreed with how it played out – except for the Toronto fans.

As a result, quite a few of them in the stands decided to show their displeasure with the result by throwing things on to the field. Of course, most of what was tossed never made it out of the stands, and in fact, a woman and her baby were nearly hit with a beer can (the baby ended up getting sprayed with the contents of the can as it sailed near them). Needless to say that those types of reactions are a complete disgrace, but unfortunately, it seems to be more the norm in the sporting world – be it the fans acting unruly, or the athletes themselves engaging in a round of fisticuffs (or worse) with someone – usually their significant other of the moment. And it’s not just limited to American sports – heck I think it’s even worse overseas when it comes to Soccer (or Football as is proper for that neck of the woods).

 

I do give credit to the Toronto players who were trying to get everyone calmed down so that the game could continue. Personally, if I was a player on the team, I would have grabbed the stadium microphone and told those people straight up that they need to stop acting like a-holes and get a life. As a player, I would have been ashamed to have people like that rooting for me.

Maybe it’s me, but I find it hard to understand people who get so involved and worked up in a sporting event that they someone feel that these kinds of actions are an appropriate response when something doesn’t go the way of their team. I’ll root for teams and players, and I have my favorites in a few sports, but ultimately, whether a team wins the relevant championship in their respective sport or not, has little impact on most people’s lives – unless of course you’re a gambler and have money riding on the outcome – but’s a story for another blog perhaps.

My team just won the game?

            Woo hoo … now let me get back to vacuuming the floor. After all, I don’t think Peyton Manning nor Chase Utley are coming to my house to clean my toilet any time soon.

             I just can’t get all that excited over the results of a sporting event in which I am not actually a participant. I couldn’t even tell you more than a couple players at the most who are on any team that I root for. I always find it amusing when someone starts engaging me in conversation about a particular team or other if I happen to be wearing a hat or t-shirt with their logo on it. I just nod my head and try to offer an opinion or two that sound fairly plausible or credible, but I pretty much could not care less about what the franchise management is doing to the team. I still have to go to work. I still have to feed the kids and the animals. I still have to clean the house. Nothing about the outcome of a game is going to change any of that, or make my life any better. For people to act like they do on the outcome of a game or a play is just asinine to me, especially when it escalates to the point that it did in the Toronto game.

             So maybe because of that, I am a little more engaged than I normally would be in the outcome of the series between the Royals and the Blue Jays, and am rooting a little bit harder for Kansas City to come out on top.

Oh yeah – and go Cubbies!

Extra Life

And so another month has gone by in a blink of the eye. The weather is turning, the hurricane became a bust, and Abigail became a 1-year-old, who is already addicted to the sweet stuff. Over the past year, if I give myself enough time before or after work, I’ll drive the highway off which the hospital is located where she was born at the end of last September. I remember thinking how nice and upscale it is and not minding staying a few days there (for good things of course), until the third day after Abby was born and all we wanted to do was get her home and enjoy the new life God gave to us. The shininess had worn off by then. I guess it didn’t help that Erin still had to go to school, and I still had to get to work the rest of the week, and of course the animals still needed food and water. Still, the hospital was a heck of a lot nicer than the one in which Erin was born.

It never ceases to amaze me every day that despite still being a baby just how intelligent children seem to be at this age. That’s one of the few things I remember about Erin at that point in time. Even before Abby started crawling, back when she was in the rolling phase, you could see her look around and set her mind on going somewhere or getting something and heading off in that direction to reach her goal. You can look in her eyes and know she’s up to something. I never thought I would say this when I was younger, but it’s so much fun having a baby in the house … again.

That could be one of the reasons why I’ve gotten involved in a special project the last couple of years. I’ve always been a Gamer, and have always enjoyed being able to escape the real world for a time by heading on an adventure in some dungeon in a Computer Role-Playing Game (CRPG) or building up a small village castle in a game called Stronghold, as well as a more modern city in one of the SimCity games. Never did I think that I would be able to do anything more than that with games (though there were always thoughts about being able to make a living like all those Professional Gamers in South Korea), but that changed when I heard about an annual charity event called Extra Life a couple of years ago when I was playing an on-line game called Defiance.

The developers of the game are one of several gaming industry companies that sponsor the Extra Life event every year that helps to bring in millions of dollars to the Children’s Miracle Network of Hospitals. So I decided to learn a little bit more about the event and the organization that runs it, and after watching the video that gave some background on how the event got started (check it out for yourself with the link below – it’s well worth the 13 minutes to watch), I felt compelled to join in the cause and do what I can to help raise money for the event.

Essentially, the event is a 24 hour marathon – not unlike those annual Jerry Lewis telethons from oh so long ago, where gamers get people to sponsor them as they play games over the course of 24 hours around the last weekend in October or the first weekend in November. The details can be found in the video and on the Extra Life website (www.Extra-Life.org), so I’ll spare the words giving them here in favor of why I wanted to help support this event.

As a father, I was brought to tears after watching the video, and it still affects me profoundly every time I watch it up to this day. No parent wants their child to be hurt or to feel pain. Yet every day, thousands of kids across the country spend their days lying in a hospital bed, suffering from a myriad of serious diseases and other ailments. Many years ago, I had a co-worker whose young daughter was one of those kids, and I could see the fear and worry in his eyes every day as he thought about what she had to go through in order to save her life. I could not imagine having to go through that with Erin or Abby, and I truthfully don’t know how I would be able to live every day knowing one of them was hurting and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I am fortunate that this is something I only have to think about and not actually experience, and hope I never have to. However, there are all those kids, and their families, going through those things every day, and thanks to Extra Life, I can feel like I am doing something to help ease their suffering, even if just for a little while.

So starting Friday, November 6^th, at 8:00 PM Eastern Time, I will be participating in my third consecutive Extra Life marathon. Every penny that I raise from now until the end of 2015 will go to the CMN hospital that I choose to sponsor, which is the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. It may not be much, but at least I can feel good that I am doing what I can to help the kids in CHOP and their families get some of the care and comfort that they need. I hope that everyone who reads this can share it with their friends and family, and tell them to keep on sharing it as well. Unfortunately, despite the good that Extra Life does, it seems that news organizations are more interested in running stories about gamers shooting up groups of people instead of gamers doing something they love to help children get healthier.

And now for the shameless begging … This year I am hoping to reach a modest goal of $300 raised for CHOP, and I am hoping that each and every person reading this blog, and those they pass it on to, can help me reach that goal. Even if it’s only a $1 donation, every single penny is welcome and appreciated. Everyone is also invited to join me during my marathon as I enjoy one of my favorite hobbies for a great cause. You can watch me via a live stream on Twitch.tv and join me in the chat room to root me on - or just keep me awake! I hope to also have some special family guests pop in during the marathon.

Thank you everyone for reading and I hope I can count on your support this year!

To make a donation, visit my participant page:

http://www.extra-life.org/participant/RealMillenniumGroup

The Extra Life Video:

It’s the End of the Summer as we know it

… and I feel … odd. I think it started about a month ago at this point, on my way to work in the mornings. At first, it was having to put the visor down every morning as the sun would be beaming right in the windshield. Then, within a span of only a week or so, I noticed that it was still dark when I got up in the morning, to get ready to head off to work, and I needed the visor less and less. Now, only a couple of weeks later, it seems like the dead of night when I’m heading down the road and pulling into the parking lot. It just struck me so much that during one week, I began to take note each day of where the sun, or the light by that time was each morning and could discern the difference between the start and the end of the week. I don’t know if it’s ironic, but it’s a strange thing that the start of the summer, with the longest day of the year, also marks the beginning of the end, as the days only get shorter from there on out.

I don’t find it depressing but more disconcerting. We made our final trip to Hershey for the summer the last Wednesday of August, and despite the enjoyable experience it was (despite the three trips on Skyrush the first thing in the morning) with the mid-late summer crowds having already come and gone, there was that air of finality hanging over the trip. Sure there might be those one or two chances to head back for the seasonal events in the Fall and Winter, but it’s just not the same as all those trips made during the summer months. It seems like we were anxiously anticipating the end of the school year so we can make those treks not too long ago, and now here we are, already finishing the opening week of the new school year. How much longer before we see those first few snowflakes of the season? Sometimes how I wish for a TARDIS to be able to, if not stop time for a while, at least remain in a certain point of it for much longer than reality lets it last.

Which reminds me … I really need to get back to work on my Doctor Who spin-off stories. I have a couple chapters written already, but can never feel satisfied enough with what I already have to go back and write some more.

Anyway, while contemplating this, I realized that we’re not too far from the anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks, and was taken aback that we’re already at the 14^th anniversary. It doesn’t seem like four years have gone by since the 10^th anniversary was honored. Again, it never ceases to amaze me how fast time seems to be moving now more than ever. Thinking about that got me to wondering what other anniversaries have come and gone, and I realized that it seems the 35^th anniversary of Mt. Saint Helens’ eruption was completely passed by. Maybe it was I was too busy that day to notice mention on the news reports – if I even watched any. What I really find odd, though, it that it is one of those few major events that have occurred in my life that I can’t remember where I was or what I was doing when I heard about it. I still remember watching the docu-drama about the eruption, but that’s pretty much it. I remember where I was when I heard about the Challenger and the Columbia, and of course on that day back in 2001, but nothing for St. Helens. Perhaps it’s because that event was less impactful for me at my age back then than the others were.

The finality of time rolling on is a strange thing. This past week seemed even stranger still as summer (despite having another couple of “official” weeks) gave us one more taste of the heat that marks that one special season of the year where three months are set apart from the other nine. It’s always been special to me – all those summers of the great battles: G.I. Joe vs. COBRA and the Autobots vs. the Decepticons out in the backyard, and those great intergalactic battles with every conceivable group of action figures in the possession of my brother and myself. If there was one good thing about being unemployed a couple years ago it was for the fact that for the first time in a long time I had a summer that I could thoroughly enjoy and at least replay those days of glory in my mind, even if I couldn’t relive them like I used to oh so long ago. The one thing I miss the most, though, are those cross-country trips we used to take as a family. I hope that we can at least have one year where we can give our kids a taste of what that was like. Until then, all there is to do is wait for the next nine months to go by and start looking for the next time the weather forecast mentions the term “heat wave.”

Reflections

Note - The following originally appeared on my website, and in preparation of uploading some original fanfic stories, I am now copying it here for prosperity:

I read my sister’s blog not too long ago about her trip to London back in November for the 50th Anniversary Doctor Who convention. It was quite an amazing experience. The memories of my youth came flooding back – I first remembered the time I had the opportunity to attend a Who convention, oh so long ago, in Baltimore while I was attending Salisbury State University. I don’t remember much about the convention itself – only bits and pieces which include meeting Sophie Aldred (Ace – Companion to the 7th Doctor), and of course Tom Baker – the 4th Doctor, who is “my” doctor as well. I do remember feeling nervous about going since it was the first time I would make a trip to a large metropolitan city and doing it as a lone wolf. I was never one to be much of a city boy, let alone driving to navigate the roads in such, but somehow I made it to the show on time, and eventually made it back to my dorm room on the Maryland peninsula. This would have been right around the time that the show went on “extended” hiatus, which really meant that the BBC had finally killed it off.

The BBC did what no monster, evil genius, nor the Master himself could do in the show’s history. The BBC killed Doctor Who. They had been trying to kill it for years, and unfortunately, Colin Baker, who played the 6th Doctor in a far too short term was one of the early casualties of the battle. People can, and have, tried to come up with all sorts of excuses and reasons why the show, which even at that time in 1989, was the longest running Science-Fiction television programme in history why it met its demise. The true reasons why the BBC wanted rid of it are either unknown, unmentioned, or just lost to the ages of fading memory. Regardless, those in charge finally got their wish.

Doctor Who began its life 7 years before my own. It was there in my formative years, and my earliest television memories include watching an enigmatic character with a wide-brim hat and impossibly long scarf tramp across time and space in a funny looking big blue box, along with other notable shows like the original Star Trek, and the animated runs of G.I. Joe and The Transformers which appeared every weekday after school. Of course, at the time, it was PBS that was hosting reruns of Doctor Who, so it tended to be a few seasons behind the actual run in Britain, and early on, only had the shows featuring the 3rd and 4th Doctors. So it is amusing to me now to remember back to those early days and think that Jon Pertwee (Doctor #3) was actually successor to Tom Baker since PBS began the cycle again with Jon’s premier episode after they had exhausted their current inventory of Tom’s shows available. It was not until some years later, when the Peter Davison episodes finally made their way across the pond that I understood the correct chronology, and gained more of an interest in the character of the Doctor as now I realized there were more versions of him out there.

As the 70’s waned and the next decade took hold, it grew ever more apparent that the Doctor had tremendous international appeal across the globe, and thus more and more episodes were exported from the British Empire (though unfortunately by that time, many of the shows featuring the first three Doctors were destroyed, several dozen of which still remain missing to this day). But what there was became more available, so as I grew and was able to dig deeper and deeper into the lore and information about the programme, I was able to begin to experience each of the incarnations of the wandering Time Lord and found something to like about each one. I eventually became a member of two Doctor Who fan clubs and couldn’t get enough of the show – even going so far as to request my mother knit a scarf that was a replica of the one featured in Tom Baker’s final season as the Doctor, which I still wear every now and again when winter rolls around each year.

It was around this time that I was heading off to University and the Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy episodes were making their way onto PBS. Though my favorite Doctor was, and always will be the 4th, I still found the newer replacements just as fun and engaging as those I remembered as a child. And it was for that reason I found it so disheartening to learn that the BBC no longer wanted the programme around, and through the information provided from the fan clubs learned of the turbulent times of the 6th Doctor’s run, and then eventually learned of the second, and final “hiatus” of the show while in my first year of studies at SSU.

For the remainder of my four years at school, I could only satisfy my cravings through the reruns on PBS while ingesting as much information as I could get via the fan clubs and hope beyond hope that the BBC would see reason and return the programme to the airwaves in short order, as I imagine most other fans of the series did at the time. However, as the years went by and the 90’s took full hold, the realization came that Doctor Who would not be coming back. Disappointment set in and as Real Life marched on with the responsibilities of work and relationships with others that did not quite have the interest in Doctor Who that I did, I let my fandom slip away to the memories of time, and moved on to other things.

Then, around late 1995, early 1996, hope glimmered anew as rumors of a television special began to make waves. This would be funded and produced by an American company. Though it had been 7 years since the Doctor’s demise in Britain, the fanbase in the US still remained strong and here was hope that this television special might draw enough of an audience to bring the programme back to life, and at least keep it out of the hands of the BBC to boot. Alas, it was not to be. Though the show itself was enjoyable, and Paul McGann performed capably as the 8th Doctor, I personally felt that too much was crammed into the show to bring in enough new fans to give the kickstart needed for another series. There was too much backstory referred to that would only make sense to long time fans of the show and of course throwing in a regeneration scene to boot would have just caused too much confusion to those coming to know the Doctor for the first time. Whatever the reasons, this became a one-off adventure of the 8th Doctor on television, the remainder of stories featuring him relegated to the ongoing series of novelizations and audio adventures at the time, until the recent webisode featuring his regeneration into the War Doctor (now unofficially the 9th Doctor).

So once again, the Doctor, and any hope of his return, faded to the memory of the ages for another 9 years. Then around 2004/2005 the big news arrived that the Doctor would return in a new series, for realsies this time. The BBC had decided to bring the show back on the air after 16 years of limbo. However, I found I could no longer feel the excitement that the news should have brought, and that I had felt almost a decade before when the Doctor had returned all too briefly. Perhaps it was because I didn’t want to be disappointed again. Perhaps the results of experiencing the runs of the new Star Trek series and movies that just didn’t quite measure up to the 78 episodes of the original run, and of experiencing the disappointment of the prequel trilogy of the Star Wars movies left me jaded in thinking that any new series would just not be able to measure up and capture the unique campiness and quirks of the original run of the show. Mostly, though, perhaps it was the fact that it was the BBC who killed the programme in the first place and I thought that they least of all deserved to have run of the show and any profits that would come of it.

In the end, I guess you could say I had moved on. That relationship was in the past. I now had new interests and a family that occupied my time. It was not until some years later, during David Tennant’s run as the 10th Doctor (now unofficially the 11th) that I actually took the opportunity to watch a couple of the episodes from the first new season just to see what it was all about. I was glad that the show held true to its roots, and though I did not like the TARDIS interior redesign (which was first featured in the ’96 special), found the episodes enjoyable enough to watch. But, in the end, my initial feelings held true. As faithful as the new series remained to the original, it just wasn’t the same. The magic was gone for me, and the new series will never hold the awe and wonderment that the original did. Which brings me back to a statement by Matt Smith (the most recent Doctor to complete his run – 11th or 12th depending on your point of view) that my sister had mentioned in her blog.

He had said something to the effect that the people in their 30’s were robbed of Doctor Who. You could say they were robbed of their childhood. I couldn’t imagine what my life would have been like had I not been introduced to the Doctor in my formative years and been a fan of the show up through most of my young adulthood. I would not be the same person I am now. So yes, the BBC robbed millions of people of their childhoods back on that day in 1989 when they decided to end the run of a show that brought joy to many across the globe (and I am sure lined the pockets of the execs at the time to boot). But more than that, all of us who had been fans, young and old, were robbed of one of the most unique, interesting, and captivating science-fiction programmes of all time. Ironic that after 50 years of continuing to be the longest running sci-fi series in history, for about a third of that time, there were no new episodes being produced.

So when I had finished reading the blog, I realized I wished I could have been there as much as my sister wanted me to be there with her at the convention. Despite all the intervening years where I had not watched one single episode of all the hundreds I had videotaped over time, with the exception of the two DVDs my sister had given me for Christmas a few years ago, I wished more than anything I could have been in the room where the panel of the old Doctors was being held, and that I would have been lucky enough to have been selected to ask a question of them. I imagine it would have gone something like this:

“Hello, and thank you all for taking the time to be here. I swam all the way from Trenton, NJ just for this event. (Pause for laughter). Just in case there are those who don’t remember, Trenton was where K-9 was made, and I must say it gave a boy of my young years at the time a thrill to know that my favorite Doctor actually knew where I lived. (Another pause for laughter and applause).

“I just wanted to say, that even though I always think of Tom as “my” Doctor, and he will always hold a place as my favorite among all, that I enjoyed what each and every one of you brought to the role and always looked forward to your next adventure every week. I only regret that we don’t have three equally important gentlemen sitting up there with you so that they can be included with that statement. (pause for more applause). I should also include Mr. McGann as well since I consider him part of the old guard as well, and I think it truly a shame that he, Colin, and Sylvester got the short end of the stick and really did not get the chance to shine as bright during their tenures as the Doctor. (more applause). Like I said, I enjoyed what each and every one of you brought to the show and to the Doctor and wish the two of you, and Paul had more of a chance to complete longer runs in the role.

“But, let me get on with my question as I don’t want to rob anyone else of their opportunity. Thinking back to something I think I recall Peter saying one time in that he regrets not staying on longer as the Doctor (correct me if I am wrong), and with the realization that time marches on and we really only have a limited time on this earth, I would ask each of you, if you had a TARDIS and could go back in time to re-visit your tenure as the Doctor, what would you see as the biggest success or triumph of your run, and what would you see as the biggest regret that you would like to have back and change?”

What I wouldn’t give to be able to hear the answer to both of those questions from each and every one of the gentlemen who played the role from Bill Hartnell up through Paul McGann. And come another 25 years, when we celebrate the programme’s 75th anniversary, to include Chris Eccleston, Dave Tennant, Matt Smith, and Peter Capaldi in that as well. Because, you see, thanks to a little bit of canon introduced during the original run of the show, we know that Time Lords can be granted additional sets of regenerations, so though Capaldi marks the official last form of the Doctor’s original set of 12 regenerations (allowing for 13 different “bodies”), I have no doubt that he will be given a new lease on life and continue on, so long as the BBC doesn’t make the same mistake twice.