#AtoZChallenge2023: Doctor Who PBS (and Pluto)

"Support for this PBS station comes from Viewers like you."

- The Unofficial Start of Every Doctor Who episode in my youth.

At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old man. Doctor Who fans today have it easy. We have DVDs, Blu-Rays, BBC America, BritBox, Pluto (more on that) and untold ways to watch our favorite episodes of Doctor Who.

In the 80s this was not the case. Back in the 1980s we had ONE choice to watch Doctor Who and that was our local PBS station. If your station didn't carry it, well you had to hope you had a friend who did have access and access to a VCR to record them. 

For me that was KETC PBS Channel 9 out of St. Louis, MO. 

I grew up on Channel 9. As a little kid I watched Sesame Street and the Electric Company. As I got older I watched Cosmos with Carl Sagan and 3-2-1 Contact.  I tried to watch Upstairs, Downstairs and Masterpiece Theater. I knew they were good, but I never caught them often enough to know what was going on. But I, Claudius, was amazing.  I was primed to accept that anything on this channel was quality.

So when I was introduced to Doctor Who in the early 80s (1983) I was ready to accept it as the best thing ever on TV. It was A.) British and B.) on PBS. So of course it was great. Sadly it was not on till 10:30 pm on a Sunday night and I had school and a morning paper route to do on Monday morning. I got into a lot of trouble trying to watch it.

Another issue for me? I only had an old Black & White TV, so my first experiences with Doctor (namely the Key to Time series) were all in Black & White!  I didn't get my first color TV until I, and this is no kidding, traded my 18 ft long Doctor Who scarf for one.

I think there is a sort of rite of passage with older Doctor Who fans. We all can readily identify which PBS stations we watched them on.  KETC always took the individual parts and showed them as one complete story.  Other stations showed 1 or 2 parts a night. This was the case for WTTW in Chicago. I did not get that station then, but now it is my local station.

The whole "Viewers Like you" thing hit me hard too. I felt like I was watching Doctor Who but not a real fan since I didn't help PBS out. So one year I finally asked my parents to send in support. I paid them back and got this sweet TARDIS key chain that I still have to this day.

Still pretty pleased to have that.

The TARDIS Data Core wiki has a great history on PBS and its association with Doctor Who.

Doctor Who on Pluto

Nowadays you can get Doctor Who nearly anywhere, but the closest experience to the old PBS stations is watching Doctor Who on PlutoTV.

There are "Doctor Who" channels that play the Classic Doctor episodes 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

I have been catching them as I can and it has been fantastic.  If you are new Who fan it is worth checking out. Plus Pluto is 100% free! You can even watch it on any device.

Additionally, on Tubi, you can catch the old Doctor Who Dalek movies.

Something I never expected to happen back in the 1980s, sometime after 10:30 pm on a Sunday night when I was supposed to be asleep. 

All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.

#Dungeon23 Tomb of the Vampire Queen, Level 4, Room 19

 The secret door, really just a hidden one, is to the right from the perspective of heading toward Room 20. There are a few stones to move (combined strength of 20 required, up to three characters) the biggest obstacle is the dark.

This appears to be the Grimlock's larder. In here are four Trolls. They are tied up and their limbs have been hacked off.  The grimlocks have captured them and are keeping them near death as a regenerating food source.  Their limbs are growing back at odd angles and lots of mutations.

Each troll only has 1d4 HP each. They can be easily killed but only give 10 XP each.

There are a few magic items here too. One is a sword +1/+3 vs. trolls. It glows in the present of trolls. When the trolls are dead the glow will stop.  The trolls were afraid of it, and the grimlocks hated the light.

There is a wand of magic missiles here as well. It has 2d6+4 charges remaining.

Wasted Lands Playtest: Ereshkigal

We are in the midst of the Wasted Lands playtest right now. It is fun to play a game I am at the same time familiar with (it is very similar to NIGHT SHIFT) and yet brand new at the same time.  For me, there is extra fun here since I can use so much of my own One Man's God material in my home games.  

My home game, right now, is a bit of a riff on my "Second Campaign" ideas.  Recall that in the Wasted Lands during the "Dreaming Age," the first generation of humanity (or proto-humanity) has thrown off the yoke of the Old Ones (the stars went "wrong" again), and now they have an Earth to themselves.  It is part Mythical Age and part Post-Apocylptic. 

With the Old Ones gone, humanity renews its battles with their most significant threats, the reptiles. So I have reptiles and Snake People as my big bads here, at least for this trail run of the game.

Since the characters will become the gods of our myths and legends, I want to try out some of my favorite gods here.

Up first is one I have called "The World's First Goth Girl" Ereshkigal.

She was the Queen of the Underworld and the Goddess of the Dead in Sumerian mythology. In the Dreaming Age, though, she is now just a 1st Level Necromancer.  This is good for me since my very first D&D character was a cleric dedicated to destroying the undead. So a nice little flip side to that.

Wasted Lands: The Dreaming Age uses the same O.G.R.E.S. rules as NIGHT SHIFT does. So following along here will be easy. 

So. Let us see what we can do.

Siouxsie Sioux as Ereshkigal

Ereshkigal

Class: Necromancer (Persona Aspect)
Level: 1
Species: Human

Alignment: Dark Neutral

Abilities
Strength: 16 (+2)
Agility: 13 (+1)
Toughness: 15 (+1) N +1
Intelligence: 13 (+1)
Wits: 15 (+1) N +1
Persona: 17 (+2) A +2

Fate Points: 
Defense Value: 7
Vitality: 5 (d6)
Degeneracy:
Corruption:

Check Bonus (A/N/D): +2/+1/0
Melee Bonus: +2
Ranged Bonus: +1
Saves: +3 to Persona based

Special Abilities
Channel the Dead 22%
See Dead People
Summon the Dead 15%
Command (Spirits)
Protection from Undead
Turn Undead 20%

Divine Notes: Death, Earth Psychopomp
Background: Undertaker

Gear
Leather armor: DV 8
Dagger: 1d4

Here is my concept for her.

At this time, Ereshkigal of Irkalla & Kur is the daughter of Nanna, an oracle of the moon. It has been her task to take care of the dead of the city and in particular, the dead that have been killed by dark magics. 

I have yet to do much with her, but rolling her up was as easy as rolling up any D&D-like character. Faster even if you are a fan of NIGHT SHIFT. Now I don't have everything figured out just yet, but I want to get her into a game to figure it all out. 

The campaign I am working up will be against a cult of Snale Men that are trying to rise up in the vacuum left by the Old Ones. Humanity is on the brink of being wiped out before they even begin and only one group will inherit the Earth. 

Since I see Ereshkigal as the world's first goth girl, it only makes sense that she is portrayed in my games by Siouxsie Sioux.

Want to know more about The Wasted Lands? Head on over to Jason's blog to read more.

#AtoZChallenge2023: Doctor Who Occult Themes

The Doctor: This lot have still got one foot in the Dark Ages. If I tell them the truth they’ll panic and think it was witchcraft.
Martha: Okay, what was it then?
The Doctor: Witchcraft.

- The Doctor and Martha, The Shakespeare Code

Doctor Who is overtly a sci-fi series and a family show. So one would imagine that themes of the occult and horror would not pop up, but you would be wrong!

Doctor Who has a long-established tradition of "hiding behind the sofa" when the Daleks show up and with some of the scarier episodes.  While there are plenty of scary episodes and plenty more that met with the disapproval of Mary Whitehouse, I want to focus on ones that had occult overtones as befitting my typical interests around here.  I'll also look into that most quintessential of all British horror, Folk Horror.

The Dæmons

This one has the dæmons returning to Earth, but they are not diabolic, but rather a race of giants that have "sufficiently advanced science" that looks like magic. Though it does have the Master posing as a Satanic Priest and using rituals to summon the dæmon Azal.  There is even a white witch in this one.

The magic here is couched very much in the science of Doctor Who, it is just highly advanced.

This episode is very much a British Folk Horror tale. And there was that time where the 11th Doctor fought them off with the help of Buffy and her friends. 

Image of the Fendahl

Talked about this one all the way back on "F" day.

The Stones of Blood

Here is another "Science disguised as Magic" the large standing stones are disguised blood drinking creatures and the alien of our tale is disguising herself as The Cailleach of Scottish and Irish myth. 

Of note: This episode gave me the idea for Gog and Magog.

The Awakening

Another British Folk Horror episode this deals with a demon-like creature and old pagan rites. In some ways it reminded me a lot of The Dæmons. So much so that I was disappointed it wasn't more closely tied to it. 

The Curse of Fenric

I'll go into this one in more detail later on, but there are some interesting occult associations here as well. 

The Unquiet Dead

Ghosts in Cardiff. Or really, the Gelth caught in a time rift. In Universe, this was the reason that Charles Dickens wrote about ghosts in A Christmas Carol. In the real world this gave us some background for the Torchwood series. 

The Impossible Planet / Satan Pit

Ah. Now this one was so good.  I might have to add this as my one "TV Episode" per year to my Horror movie marathon in October. This one is more straight up horror than occult, but the appearance of the "Devil" at the end sends this one into occult territory.

The Beast of this episode does bring to mind the Dæmons of the Pertwee era. They might even be related to this creature as their former ruler. Maybe it was them that chained him up in the Pit.

The Shakespeare Code

Ah. This is not the first Doctor Who episode to feature witches or witch-like creatures, but it is a fun one. This Tenth Doctor romp features a subtly bisexual Shakespeare ("Fifty-seven academics just punched the air,") and former HEX actress Christina Cole as Lilith. 

Again this episode implies that magic and "witchcraft" are just a different type of science. Maybe an older type.

Hide

Hide is a fantastic haunted house episode. Among other things, there is a monster, a psychic, a witch, and all sorts of strange goings on. Our psychic is played by the amazing Jessica Raine, who will have more involvement with Doctor Who and our monster...well it is a quintessential Doctor Who twist. The monster is just a poor alien trapped in time. The witch is a time traveler from the future trapped in every moment of time but stuck at this house. So in the words of The Doctor, "this isn't a ghost story, it's a love story."

The Witchfinders

Few things are as British occult as the witches of Pendle Hill. It is here in this episode the Doctor, now in the form of Jodie Whittaker, finds herself in the middle of. 

Again, no witches or demons here, just aliens. In fact the Doctor says "A brilliant man once said, 'any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.'" One of Arthur C. Clarke's Three Laws. 

While the Doctor will deal with various occult themes, the explanation will always be some sort of advanced science. It is a conceit of the show's universe and one that works well enough for me. 

All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.

#Dungeon23 Tomb of the Vampire Queen, Level 4, Room 18

Going left in Cave #17 takes the party through a short narrow tunnel (only single file here) it opens to a large, and mostly dark cave. 

Photo by Christina Petsos

Inside the cave a small group (2d10+4) of Grimlocks have made their home.  

The grimlocks are blind, but they can sense the party.  Two of these creatures are larger with 3 HD and there one leader of 4 HD. The leader also has a +1 sword. The sword does not glow. All the grimlocks are combative, even the youths will kill, and eat, anything they do not recognize.

There is Treasure Types E and J found here, mostly from other creatures the grimlocks have killed in the past. 

There is an exit straight ahead from the entrance (to Room 20) and a hidden exit (secret door) to the right as the party came in (Room 19).

#AtoZChallenge2023: Doctor Who New Who (and the Ninth Doctor)

The Doctor: I'm the Doctor, by the way, what's your name?

Rose Tyler  Rose.

The Doctor: Nice to meet you, Rose, - run for yer life!

- The Ninth Doctor, "Rose"

Doctor Who premiered in November 1963 and ran until 1989. There was a TV movie that, while fun, was not great and went no where. Sadly we Doctor Who fans settled in to just enjoying the new novels and the audio dramas. 

Then Russel T. Davis came on the scene and, in 2005 brought Doctor Who back!

At first, we did not know if this new series was a new series or tied to the original series. So many of us began to call this "New Who" or even "NuWho."

Not only did we get a wonderful series that had all the charm of the old series, but we would also learn that this Doctor was the Ninth Doctor and he was the only survivor of the Great Time War between the Time Lords and the Daleks. 

The original series ran 26 years and had seven total Doctors. Eight if you count the movie. The new series has run for 14 seasons (though almost 18 years) and has had six doctors, or eight, or nine depending on how you count it. 

The new series of Doctor Who has done so much to bring in new fans to the show and make it a world-wide phenomena. While the Tenth and Fourteenth (both David Tennant) and the Eleventh (Matt Smith) did much to make the show popular we really have to thank Christopher Eccleston for bringing the character back to life.

Eccleston's Doctor was a Doctor consumed with guilt and sadness. He was fresh off the Time War (tune in for that on "W" day), and you feel that Rose was his first companion in a very, very long time.  This Doctor had seen everything he loved burn and to make it all worse, he knew he was the one that caused it all. This new reality; the Time War, Gallifrey destroyed, and the Doctor alone, made for a great way to bring in both new and old fans. It was, well to quote the Ninth Doctor, "Fantastic!"

This was the Doctor that got my wife and kids hooked on the show and made us a Who-loving family.

While Eccleston had his own reasons for leaving (and I won't debate his choice here) it did do one very, very perfect thing. It gave new viewers a complete Doctor Who experience in one whole season.  

His regeneration at the end of his first and only season gave the new fans something we old fans always had. That fear and anticipation about who this new doctor was going to be. 

My wife was SO upset with this. And as you can expect David Tennant's Tenth Doctor went on to become her favorite.

New Who has been fantastic to me as an old-school Doctor Who fan. 

If you want more details on the new series of Doctor Who, pop on over to fellow A to Z blogger, Elena Square Eyes, and see what she is doing. She is also doing the A to Z of Doctor Who but focusing on the newer stories.

All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.

#Dungeon23 Tomb of the Vampire Queen, Level 4, Room 17

 The hallway leads down to another cave.

Photo by Kevin Burnell: https://www.pexels.com/photo/grayscale-photo-of-a-cave-13049146/

This cave is vast with a diffuse eldritch glow. There are regular bats, blind moles and other normal inhabitants, but no other creatures.

There are two exits. One on the far side of the cave and another to the left.