Real Time (webcast)

Real Time was a six-episode webcast animated adventure featuring the Sixth Doctor. It was available via the BBCI website in 2002. Real Time was one of a few animated webcasts produced featuring various incarnations of the Doctor in the years prior to the revival of the series.

This serial is notable for including the character Evelyn Smythe, marking the first time a character created for the Big Finish Productions audio dramas had appeared in a BBC-sponsored production. It also marked the final active and confirmed appearance, to date, of the original version of the Cybermen in a BBC-sponsored production before the advent of the Cybus Cybermen in 2006 and Cybermen of ambiguous origin in The Adventure Games and series 6 in 2010 and 2011.

Synopsis

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Plot

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Cast & Characters

References

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Story notes

This story featured the debut of the blue version of the Sixth Doctor's outfit. Multiple reasons were given for this; Colin Baker not having been fond of the original version, and the blue suit being more suited to the evolved version of the character. The main reason, though, was technical simplicity; the original version of the costume would have been too complex to portray in this webcast's illustrations of limited detail.^[1] The blue suit has since been adopted into the Sixth Doctor's continuity in his Big Finish audio timeline, and a blue-suited version of the Doctor from this webcast was released as a Character Options action figure.
Episodes 4 through 6 had warnings that "this week's episode contains scenes that may not be suitable for younger children".
Yee Jee Tso played Chang Lee in the 1996 Doctor Who TV movie.
Each episode was released at noon on a Friday.^[2]
Due to technical changes behind the scenes of the BBC website, the Realmedia video streams which made up the webcast stopped working. The BBC acknowledged the error in a FAQ on the Doctor Who website during Series 4, stating that they were aware of the error and were working to restore the webcast to functionality in another format "as soon as possible," but no further announcements have been made and the webcast remains inaccessible.^[3]
Due to technical changes behind the scenes of the BBC website, the Realmedia video streams which made up the webcast stopped working. The BBC acknowledged the error in a FAQ on the Doctor Who website during Series 4, stating that they were aware of the error and were working to restore the webcast to functionality in another format "as soon as possible," but no further announcements have been made and the webcast remains inaccessible.^[4]

Original Website Release/Broadcast

Episode 1 - 2nd August, 2002
Episode 2 - 9th August, 2002
Episode 3 - 16th August, 2002
Episode 4 - 23rd August, 2002
Episode 5 - 30th August, 2002
Episode 6 - 6th September, 2002

Myths

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Production Errors

The superimposed cat brooch.

In closeup shots of the Doctor's changing cat brooch it is obvious that the brooch is a rectangular image superimposed onto the image of the Doctor's lapel, as the background of the cat is a slightly different shade of blue to the lapel.

Continuity

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Timeline

This story takes place after ST: Old Boys
This story takes place before BFA: Project: Lazarus

CD and Other Releases

Big Finish released an extended version on CD, see Real Time (audio story) for more information.

Footnotes

External links

[1] BBC - Cult - Doctor Who - Real Time - FAQ

[2] BBC - Press Office - Cybermen - BBCi brings Cybermen to Cyberspace

[3] BBC - Doctor Who - FAQ - Classic Doctor Who

[4] BBC - Doctor Who - FAQ - Classic Doctor Who

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