The Doctor Who publicity machine is really firing up now. There’s a preview in the new Radio Times and a surprisingly long piece in today’s Guardian.
The corporation is planning a marketing blitz as it seeks to create a buzz around next month’s launch of the second series of the family drama since it was successfully revived last year.
It’s still “next month’s launch” though. No confirmation of the (assumed) 15th April start date[1].
As someone who has (admittedly vague) memories of watching the first Jon Pertwee episode of Doctor Who in 1970 it’s all a bit strange seeing the BBC putting so much effort into the marketing. With a couple of exceptions for the tenth and twentieth anniversaries in 1973 and 1983 the BBC never really did much to promote the original series. But suddenly it’s the flavour of the month and the marketing is everywhere. If you haven’t seen any of it yet, then it’s going to be hard to ignore over the next two weeks.
[1] Apparently this is confirmed in the new issue of Doctor Who Magazine as mentioned in this usenet discussion. However a story on the BBC site today still claims “an exact start date has yet to be confirmed in April for the second series.”
I’m even getting excited now over here in Greece. I had to watch The Christmas Invasion from a BitTorrent file I downloaded when I was lucky enough to be staying in a hotel with a free LAN connection in our room in Naples, so I’m hoping I’ll be able to see the new series pretty soon after the original trnasmission date (whenever it is) in the UK.I don’t know, being able to watch TV programmes on a computer over a phone-line – it sounds like a futuristic storyline from one of Troughton’s “lost” episodes