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Doctor Who Edit Ideas

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Cameron Samurai will love this thread. This is the place for discussing any and all ideas pertaining to fanedits of Doctor Who, be it Modern, Classic, or even Big Finish, and spinoffs too.

To start off, I think the 60s episodes need some intense reworking. Aside from obviously cutting out large swashes of filler, it could also do with better music. No, it’s not really any worse than the rest of the Classic Series, but it’s nowhere near the level of the music since. Now, given this is old-timey black and white stuff, a full orchestra in high quality audio might feel out of place, so maybe some simpler piano-centric stuff would work, not overhauling the soundtrack completely, but integrating modern motifs when appropriate, such as The Doctor’s Theme, and This Is Gallifrey. Each Doctor should also have their own action theme, as is the standard now.

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Editing Classic Who is quite a daunting task. I have all the envy in the world for editors like Whoflix, who managed just about all of it. His edits also implemented many of the alterations you’ve suggested, such as minxing new new series music, sometimes he even used scores from other sources, including Bond movies for the likes of stories such as “Inferno”

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There’s nothing obligating you to edit the entire series. Just take it one story at a time.

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There’s also a quality issue…many classic DW eps I rip have a ghosting effect.

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Cameron Samurai said:

There’s also a quality issue…many classic DW eps I rip have a ghosting effect.

This is why you need to make sure you’re working from a PAL source instead of the awkwardly standards-converted NTSC versions.

Of course, there’s still ghosting in some of those thanks to restoring from film conversions instead of original tapes, but your brief description sounds like PAL-to-NTSC interlacing issues to me.

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What if Clara didn’t die in The Snowmen, we skip the Impossible Girl arc, and Clara decides to stay in modern times to be with Danny Pink?

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I’d tried to find ways of keeping Clara alive in a Snowmen edit I wound up making for Fanedit.org, but I found it complicated. I think Clara staying with Danny can be doable by merging the finale with “Listen”

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Which finale? Name of the Doctor? She’d have to be settled in by Day of the Doctor.

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Yeah, I was talking about blending the series 8 footage with Danny, sorry I didn’t make that too clear there.

I’d love to find a way of keeping Victorian Clara alive, perhaps “Crimson Horror” can be edited into a sequel story to The Snowmen and remove all mention of Clara having died in that period?

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Deep Breath is a bore already, and it certainly doesn’t need 76 minutes, so you could easily cannibalize bits of it to sprinkle throughout Series 7 to establish that she’s still living in Victorian London. The Crimson Horror would flow very naturally with that, being the equivalent of modern day stories for other companions. It’d be nice if we could show or at least imply her family living in that time (and remove them from Time of the Doctor, of course). The Bells of Saint John could be moved to right before Name of the Doctor, and Danny Pink could be introduced there. Nightmare in Silver could be edited so that the children she’s babysitting are from Victorian Times, with a line to address their modern wardrobe (and Clara, for that matter). Then by Day of the Doctor she’s all settled in modern times in the hopes of winning the heart of Danny Pink, and Series 8, minus the bits moved to 7, plays out the same as in canon.

On a different note, in Time of the Doctor, instead of the resetting of his regeneration cycle causing the Eleventh Doctor to rejuvenate momentarily before regenerating, have him actually regenerates atop the bell tower, and simply using the holograms from the otherwise pointless “I’m naked” scene to appear as his young self with a prerecorded message from his old self while he’s really the Twelve Doctor momentarily dazed from his regeneration.

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That’s another good idea…then, when the Doctor is walking up the steps out-of-shot, reveal that it’s Capaldi when Clara turns around.

I did the belltower regeneration in an edit I did of “Time” years ago, but the hologram thing is’nt something I’d considered, sounds tricky, but with the right effects can be pulled off.

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Here’s an idea. Vicki stays onboard the Tardis after The Myth Makers and takes up Katarina’s role in The Daleks’ Masterplan. As it stands, Katarina, despite having massive potential, is wasted and serves no purpose in the story. Since we’d be working with recons, swapping out characters shouldn’t be too hard.

Speaking of Masterplan, based on the title, I came to realize Mavic Chen being the Master would actually feel really appropriate. Just add a line or two stating this and there you go. The actor who plays him also plays a similar villain-assisting role in The Invasion as Tobias Vaughn. I haven’t seen it yet, but perhaps that could be that same Master, and he was just using a disguise in Masterplan, something the Master has been known to do. I guess thanks to being mostly recons, you could just make Chen look like Vaughn, but then what would you do for the episodes that aren’t missing?

Something brilliant I’ve seen done is having the faces offered to the Second Doctor in The War Games be his future incarnations.

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I’m now reminded of that amusing easter eggo claymation short from the Earthshock DVD

Apparently Big Finish did reveal Adric survived in one of thier audios, but he wasn’t played by Matthew Waterhouse and had mutated significantly.

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I’ve been editing “alternative parts” of random serials…came up with a happy ending for Ressurection of the Daleks, minimising Lytton’s survival and keeping Tegan on board the TARDIS, also left the Brigadeer dead in Battlefield.

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The Brigadier dying onscreen is an interesting idea, but honestly, I prefer the way he died offscreen, only for the Doctor to call and find out afterward.

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What if you removed the trial framing device for Season 23 and made an abridged Trial of a Timelord the finale instead, revisiting the stories from that season.

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I haven’t seen either, but I think it would make sense to turn K9 and Company into an episode of the Sarah-Jane Adventures.