h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Kerr asked:

>> Wasn't it the book of lists that starts with a list of stories, gets as far as Marco Polo then ends with 'Oh, blow this for a game of soldiers'? <<

It was the Completely Useless Encyclopaedia by Steve Lyons and Chris Howarth.

As I've said in the past, it doesn't really matter what the perceived 'proper' story titles are. Whether you call it 'Edge of Destruction or 'Inside the Spaceship', it doesn't make it any better or worse and we know what you mean anyway.

Its 'proper' title might be '100,000BC', but then my proper title is James and I'm known as Jim or Jimster. I know it as 'An Unearthly Child' and only call it '100,000BC when it's been naughty or it's applying for a passport

Anyway, it's important for fans to have useless stuff to devote their energies too. Otherwise they might get organised and take over the world, and Hell, even I don't want that.

I like the title "Doctor Who and a 100,000BC"... I'd love to know what possessed whoever it was to actually write it down!

As Andrew Pixley explains, it was down to there being two ways of describing the episodes: each one had a descriptor - a short pithy name that said what it was about - and a working title purely for commissioning and rights payments purposes. On the titles, they had a template that basically read 'Doctor Who and ...'. So, story D's descriptor was 'Doctor Who and a Journey to Cathay' while the title was (probably) 'Doctor Who and Marco Polo' - although as Andrew's article shows, the two titles were often interchangable. That the first story retained the 'a' is probably just a quirk of the template.

Incidentally, this is why some guides list the story after 'Galaxy 4' as 'Dalek Cutaway' - this is the descriptor for 'Mission to the Unknown', explaining that the series' action 'cuts away' to a single episode about the Daleks. Certain archive researchers mistook this for the actual title, which was then printed in a few books in the early/mid 1990s.

I think this is one of the reasons I love this show. There are still so many obscure details to find out, and so many things we still don't know - such as who producer Barry Letts originally cast to replace Katy Manning before dropping her to cast Lis Sladen as a different character. Barry Letts has (so far) refused to say who it was.

new query on the forthcoming hartnell dvd.
is one of these episodes the one where hartnell wishes the viewers a merry xmas?
and the daleky one is an adaptation of the who film with roy castle in, isn't it?

to those talking about pertwee's frontier in space? Considering it's a dalek episode they don't appear very much, do they?

Can't remember the exact episode, but I know that it wasn't until 1965 so: no, the episode where Hartnell wishes the viewers a merry Christmas isn't in this boxed set.

<>

B-b-b-b-BLASPHEMER!! Only messing with you... I'm afraid you've got your wires crossed there, the film was an adaptation of the serial.

It's The feast of Steven, from the end of The Daleks' Masterplan.

Yes, Hartnell turned to the camera and said the line "And incidentally - a Merry Christmas to all of you at home!" at the end of the very VERY daft episode 7 ('The Feast of Steven') of The Daleks' Master Plan. I listened to the audio of it on Christmas day itself, exactly 40 years to the day after it was originally transmitted!

Needless to say, 'The Christmas Invasion' was 100 times better!

Paully

And sadly, The Feast of Steven doesn't exist any longer. Only the audio track and a few off-screen photos survive:

http://drwhotht.phenominet.com/steven/steven.htm

A fan-produced 'photonovel' which contains the surviving pictures and that infamous Christmas greeting.