The 800 Day Project - End of Part One

Yes, the "800 Day Project" is still going. I've not missed a single day of viewing since I began. Holidays, family birthdays, even dodgy DVD discs - nothing has got in the way of watching one episode of Doctor Who a day, every day.

I still intend to write *something* about the episodes from Peter Davison onwards, but other things like series nine reviews, some brief podcast appearances, writing an essay for publication in the new "You and Who Else" book (more on that another day) and blog posts about obscure 1980s computers have got in the way.

The thing is, I wanted to mark today - Thursday 26th November 2015 - as it's a very special point in the whole project. I've just finished part three  of "Survival". Yes I have now watched every single episode of the Classic era of Doctor Who.

I can't really believe that I made it all the way through. When I started the project back on 1st January 2014 I had a will to do it but thought that, like so many others, I would fall at the first hurdle of "The Sensorites" or maybe struggle with the reconstructions (I actually really enjoyed quite a few of those). There was a huge lift when I knew I could actually watch "Enemy of the World" and "Web of Fear" as they were intended thanks to their return to the archives. I discovered Hartnell and Troughton stories that I only knew from the novelisation's (and it's been many years since I read those) or from memories of grainy single transmissions on UK Gold or BSB Galaxy.

As I progressed through the Pertwee years I remembered more and more and we got closer and closer to the time when I started to watch the show with "Monster of Peladon". Of course when I  reached Tom Baker - always *my* Doctor -  his seven year stint was a joy and I had new appreciation for some less well thought of stories. I also got to watch "Image of the Fendahl", "Sunmakers"  and "Underworld" for the very first time.

The Davison seasons were also fun to watch since I had seen them so many times on my own video copies (yes, even "Timeflight"), while the fall and rise during the Colin Baker and McCoy seasons, with their shortened episode count, seemed to go by in a flash.

So here I am at the end of 26 years of Doctor Who. Luckily I don't have to wade through the 'Wilderness Years' in real time. Tomorrow it's straight into "The TV Movie" and then Saturday it's "Rose" and a whole different era for the programme.

This is only part one of the story. There is another 10 years worth of shows to watch before I get to the end... *



* Plus of course there will have been another 26 episodes transmitted by the time I finish in 2016. But "The 826 Day Project" doesn't have quite the same ring to it.