Strangers in Space

Did the first RTD era ever go too far and forget it was family entertainment? Join JR, @jonarnold.bsky.social, @mattbarberuk.bsky.social and @stephenhatcher.bsky.social to find out...

jrsouthall.podbean.com/e/blue-box-1...

Find our episodes in these places: strangersinspace.weebly.com/links.html

Agents in Key Largo, Florida ripped this woman wearing medical scrubs out of her car as she screamed she is a US citizen. Agents cuffed her and put her in one of their cars.

She was eventually let go, per David Goodhue of the Miami Herald, who also took this footage:

Stephen King takes on dystopia in the latest adaptation of his work, but is The Long Walk a walk in the park or a walk off a gangplank?

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We've moved! If you haven't had the last couple of episodes, find us in our new home at jrsouthall.podbean.com

Leonardo DiCaprio stars in the latest from Paul Thomas Anderson, wherein the director's quirky sensibility meets a political action thriller - but is that a match made in heaven? With @mattbarberuk.bsky.social and Luke Molloy.

jrsouthall.podbean.com/e/film-club-...

Heh, first episode at the new home will actually be tomorrow - so that'll be the big test! Looks like everything is showing here so far though. Not sure how far into the back catalogue it stretches mind you...

The Strangers in Space feed is moving to a new home. Our episodes will from now on publish here instead of the old address.

We've taken out a redirection, so logging on to the old feed should automatically transfer to the new one, your subscription should carry on as normal.

jrsouthall.podbean.com

Another randomly chosen story for Who Review Extra, another Torchwood series finale to talk about. December kicks off with Exit Wounds.

strangersinspace.libsyn.com/who-review-e...

Here's the Liverpool Echo and Newcastle Chronicle, both dated 23rd November 1963, each giving the story title as The Tribe of Gum. They must have got that from somewhere, and given that no episode had even been broadcast at this point, it can only have been from a BBC information pack.

Now, I completely agree that the rule of precedence suggests the story has now been renamed An Unearthly Child (and that's wat I call it), but on the 23rd of November 1963, if that story had any official, public title at all, it was The Tribe of Gum.

And as they never publicised it as 100,000 BC or An Unearthly Child (as a serial rather than just the episode), then there's no way we should regard the story as being called either of those things. And yet we do (and DWM even goes for the former).

This was a newspaper listing, so must have come from the BBC. It was also intended for the public, so trumps any production paperwork (which by definition wasn't meant for the public). And so The Tribe of Gum was, at least at one point, what the BBC intended that first story to be called.

The only evidence I've ever seen to suggest the BBC promoting early Doctor Who using umbrella titles for serials rather than simply the individual episode titles, was a newspaper listing giving the first serial as The Tribe of Gum.

This is the kind of stuff I find quite interesting. And also frustrating! Because I think fans have a tendency to place too much importance over certain evidence at the expense of what I think sometimes is more compelling. For example (this one's a bit of a thing for me):

😁

That makes sense. And then subsequent fans stuck with season rather than series because that had already bedded in (maybe a bit like the use of letters rather than numbers in Blakes 7?).

Two randomly chosen examples for instance; Wiki listing the episodes for US series Alias and UK series Casualty. Note which one is separated into seasons and which is in series:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_o...

But yes, US TV make seasons of things, and in the UK we make programmes by the series. Which makes the UK version confusing as you can use series as a synonym for programme, but not season - so once again the Americans' more straightforward version makes more sense.

UK TV paperwork always works in terms of series rather than season though, and Doctor Who (or things as spoken about by Who fans) tends to be the only one where guidebooks have used season rather than series. I'm sure I read once this was because of the influence of US fans on early categorisation.

So a question: have the BBC themselves ever referred to Blakes 7 in terms of Series A, B and so on in *public*? Or only on production paperwork? Because if it's the latter, then as members of the public we really ought to go with the Series 1, 2 and so on version

Mind you, the rule of precedence suggests that whatever the most recent version of how something is presented (especially in public) absolutely trumps how something might have been referred to - especially behind the scenes - back in the day, and here's how the BBC refer to it now

Not onscreen though! And onscreen definitely takes precedence

I never did grow up with it being like that though, it's something I've only seen more recently. Mind you I'm not a B7 fan, so I perhaps just didn't notice.

Although even I know it's Blakes 7 not Blake's 7

😮

I've always genuinely been confused by this

Why though? I've never understood this. It's never been Series B to the BBC as far as I'm aware. Didn't it come from some fan book in the first place? IN which case, why would you follow the naming from the fan book rather than from the corporation that made it...?

Half an hour till this

YouTube video by The Polis Box : Live! The Polis Box Live! : The Vanquishers

If you want to know where to find me at 8pm tomorrow evening, I'll be surrounded by Scottish fellas and immersed in Flux - and the whole thing will be live on the internet at the other end of this link. I might just choose Passenger.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee15...

Tomorrow evening I shall be paying for some unrelated and long forgotten sin of my past, by appearing LIVE on The Polis Box : Live!'s trial of Flux Chapter Six: The Vanquishers. Will I be extolling its virtues or condemning it to the inner ring of Satan's anus? Find out in 25 hours' time...

Seeing as our last episode was a day early, here we are Fixing Eric Saward on a Thursday rather than the intended Friday. I hope he's ready for our clean-up campaign!

strangersinspace.libsyn.com/blue-box-197...