Geekstorians: The Wilderness Years | Doctor Who, the BBC and the Show That Wouldn’t Die

About this episode

This episode explores the survival of Doctor Who during its hiatus from 1989 until its revival, focusing on the fan efforts and cultural impact during that time.

Season 2 of Geekstorians continues with one of the strangest survival stories in geek culture. In ‘The Wilderness Years’ , Dave looks at what happened after Doctor Who disappeared from television in 1989. No big finale. No proper ending. Just a show the BBC quietly stopped making, and an audience that refused to accept that as the end of the story. This episode follows the long years when Doctor Who survived off screen through novels, audio dramas, conventions, magazines and the sort of organised fan determination Britain tends to produce whenever an institution behaves like it has misplaced its own brain. It is also the story of how the people keeping Doctor Who alive during those years turned out to be the people who would eventually bring it back. Writers such as Russell T Davies , Steven Moffat , Mark Gatiss and Paul Cornell all emerge from the wider culture that kept the show going while the BBC was looking the other way. From the BBC’s attempts to sideline the series, to the 1996 TV movie, to Big Finish giving the Doctor a life beyond the screen, this is an episode about what happens when a show stops being just a programme and becomes something its audience is not prepared…

People in this episode

Hosts: Dave, Dave Elliott

Topics covered

• Doctor Who
• BBC
• geek culture
• fan determination
• television history

Keywords

• Wilderness Years
• Doctor Who
• Russell T Davies
• Steven Moffat
• Big Finish

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Geekstorians, Doctor Who, the Show That Wouldn’t Die, The Wilderness Years’

Places: Britain

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