Handman said:

There was something going on with “The Wheel in Space” at some point this year.

Wheel in Space is ‘just’ a recon. They’ve got some of the people from Loose Cannon working on it, as well as the guy who did the Web 3 DVD recon (and tons of the DVD documentaries) working on it, and Mark Ayres restored the audio. It’s the first of a line of recons they intend to produce. At the moment, it’s only confirmed to have a US release via streaming on Britbox. But chances are it’ll just turn out to be similar to Loose Cannon with better sound.

Daniel Hill (Chris Parsons) has confirmed that all surviving Shada cast members are involved in the new production.

So if the current Doctor is a woman, can The Rani be a man now? What about Romana?
Change it up a bit. TBH not even bothered by the news, just indifferent.

I would have to say yes. If the Doctor can change gender, I don’t know others wouldn’t be able to.

Puggo - Jar Jar’s Yoda said:

Just watched “Empress of Mars” and “Eaters of Light”. I thought they were fantastic. More to the point, these were really classic-style Doctor Who. They looked very much like Tom Baker episodes – slower pacing, multiple story lines, gritty settings with interesting human cultures, the party split up and each wrestling with their own problems, which then come together for the climax. And in a season with many cheesy endings, they both have GREAT endings. Anyone who likes old Doctor Who should enjoy these two episodes!

Yes, they certainly were. And they were a nice bridge after the terrible “Lie of the Land”, leading into an amazing finale. Mark Gatiss is a huge fan of the Pertwee era (he has written some good novels in that era). The bit with Alpha-centauri was a huge throwback to Curse of Peladon. It’s the kind of reference the RTD era stayed far away from, and the Moffat era has embraced. Even though I see how it might be easier to attract and keep new viewers when you’re not totally steeped in the past, and that it’s probably good that Chibnall will apparently take things in a direction away from that, I’ve got to say I enjoy it. And the Christmas Special will be a big last hurrah for that style.

Eaters of the Light was great. Rona Munroe wrote the last story of the old show (Survival), which was a pretty good script very mixed production quality. It would be nice if she kept writing in the Chibnall era.

Ah, I was hoping this would happen when Tom finally agreed to work with Big Finish! (Though to be fair, I assumed it would be a Big Finish audio…even though they already did a version of Shada with McGann.)

SilverWook said:

Probably because they animated in color in the first place. The color POTD was a waste of time.

Charles Norton’s team only produced a b&w Power, but they’re doing Shada in color now.

The color Power was made by a Canadian team unrelated (and unendorsed the way Charles describes it) by the actual team. That came about when BBCA got involved and wanted to broadcast it.

Hopefully Shada is great. Glad the aspect ratio is correct, and hoping the location filming is all HD and nicely restored.

Is this Shada recreation going to be officially part of the cannon? If so how is it going to jibe with the fact that The Five Doctors used footage from it in order to include the fourth doctor?

SilverWook said:

Perhaps the time scoop will show up and then after dropping them back at the exact moment they departed, they carry on unaware anything has happened?
The SE of TFD put them back on the boat anyway.

It did? I didn’t know that. Still the original TFD did not. I think the original TFD is what is cannon.

Doctor Who and canon are almost mutually exclusive things at this point. The BBC and the production team have gone out of their way to not codify any sort of canon for ages.

Pretty much anything can be explained by “time travel changed things” anyway.

Besides, at this point there’s so many different versions of Shada (the VHS “reconstruction,” the novelization, the Big Finish webcast with McGann, and now this animation), you can pretty much pick your poison as to which - if any - of them fits in your personal headcanon.

I can’t remember the last time I was excited for Doctor Who, yet here we are. My expectations are high for once.