Feature by BENJAMIN COOK
Meet Doctor Who Magazine’s brandnew Time Team. All 12 of them.
Long-time readers know the Time Team of old. When the feature began in June 1999, the four-strong Team (Clayton, Jac, Peter and Richard)’s mission was to watch all then-696 episodes of Doctor Who, in order, from the start. “No escape” promised the tagline. By the time they’d finished, it was December 2009 (they’d been allowed the occasional toilet break) and Doctor Who had been back on TV for almost half a decade.
The Time Team relaunched in January 2011, with a fresh line-up (Chris, E line-up (Chris, Emma, Michael and Will), whose continuing mission was to watch all of ‘modern’ Who in order. Which they accomplished (in 2017, the Team reached the 2011 series) – or would have accomplished had the BBC not kept making more episodes. SELFISH BBC!
Last November, the Time Team’s song ended. But the feature never ends. Of course it’s back – with an exciting, new line-up! A Time Team fit for 2018: renewed, regenerated, and with slightly more cast members, but as brilliant, open-minded and forthright as ever. And there’s still “no escape”. (Seriously. All new Time Teamers have been micro-chipped with GPS tracking devices.)
There are a few tweaks to the format too. Firstly– brace yourself – the 2018 Time Team won’t be watching every episode in order. That’s been done. Instead, each issue, a few of the Team will get together to watch three or four episodes from different eras – some old episodes, some newer ones, some amazing episodes, some even more amazing ones – connected by a common theme (this issue: Doctors’ first episodes).
And these Time Teamers – all 90s kids, Wilderness Years babies – include fans who’ve watched every existing episode already, and others who, though fans of the ‘modern’ show, haven’t seen anything from pre-2005. This will be their first time. (Remember yours? Your first Pertwee? Your first encounter with Vicki, or Turlough, or Ace? The first time you watched the devastating climax to Earthshock?) Now imagine how lucky you’d be if you still had it all to come.