Though probably not done in homage to this site’s long-standing Doctor Who Project, Twitch and the BBC have teamed up to give “classic” Doctor Who the marathon treatment. Weekdays from May 29th through July 23rd, the streaming site will be broadcasting most of the extant episodes of the series, showing a block of stories in order each day.
Sadly, the schedule indicates that they’re skipping some stories that are missing significant segments on film. Perhaps an understandable choice—Twitch is a video streaming site, after all—but it robs viewers of some signal moments and cuts the First and Second Doctor’s era to a mere twenty-six stories combined. So William Hartnell’s regeneration (and the first appearance of the Cybermen) in “The Tenth Planet” won’t be presented, even though only the final episode is missing and has been re-created via animation and tele-snap. And yet they’re showing “The Web of Fear,” which is similarly missing an episode that has been re-constructed. Bit of Yeti-bias there if you ask me…
Regardless of such quibbles, this Doctor Who marathon on Twitch promises to introduce these stories to a brand new audience. While I don’t think these fresh faces will be hiding behind couches like audiences of old, I’m hopeful that the original Doctors will nonetheless charm and delight a contemporary crowd and bring much-deserved attention to this monumental body of work.