Devious (home video)

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Devious is the title of an as-yet-unfinished fan-made film starring Tony Garner as an interim incarnation, the "Second-and-a-Halfth Doctor". Production began not long before Jon Pertwee's death in 1996 and constituted his final known performance as the Third Doctor (and possibly his final acting performance altogether, though he may have filmed his final widely-seen performance {a TV commercial} afterwards). Pertwee's scenes were videotaped in April 1995.

According to the official website of the production, the film is near completion with editing and special effects left to be done. The footage has been divided into six episodes, possibly in the classic series' 25-minute length.

The writers posted in 2011 that they hoped to finally finish the production that year.

Plot Summary

To be added.

Cast

Background

During the 1990s a large number of fan-made audio, film, and video productions were undertaken to keep the Doctor Who brand alive following its cancellation in 1989. Many of these productions featured either characters who were effectively the Doctor is all but name (see The Stranger and The Time Travellers, for example), or non-BBC-owned characters and monsters from the TV series that had been licensed direct from their creators (see P.R.O.B.E., Downtime, and Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans, for examples).

With the exception of Tom Baker all surviving Doctor actors, including Pertwee, had participated in at least one of these productions. Among fan-films, only Devious and one other (Gene Genius with Sylvester McCoy) are known to have featured one of these actors playing his incarnation of the Doctor...although there is no indication that the character had been licensed from the BBC.

Release

Following Pertwee's death, Big Finish Productions utilized audio of him from Devious in the 40th-anniversary audio drama, Zagreus.

In 2009, BBC Video released a 12-minute excerpt from Devious as a bonus feature on the UK and North American DVD releases of the final Troughton serial, DW: The War Games (the storyline of Devious takes place between it and Pertwee's first televised story, DW: Spearhead from Space). This marked the first time the BBC has released a fan film of this nature, although it is uncertain whether its inclusion on the DVD means it is accepted as canon (and, if so, what it overrides of Season 6B).

The film also includes several other cameos, including Anneke Wills reprising her role as Polly, although she does not appear in the excerpt released to DVD.

Story Notes

  • A major factor that began production of Devious was the comparison of Garner to both Troughton and Pertwee, looking like a cross of the two. This fueled the idea of "What if...the Second Doctor only regenerated halfway?"
  • Anneke Wills does not appear in the excerpt featured on the 2009 DVD release, as rights could not be secured to show the Cybermen (which appear in Wills' scenes). Similarly, the Daleks (which also feature in the production) are not seen.
  • The TARDIS console and walls, plus the Dalek props, were borrowed in 1999 for use in The Curse of Fatal Death. In 2004, the TARDIS set was borrowed for use in a four-part news report on the history of Doctor Who'. The TARDIS exterior (not seen in Curse), complete with Yale key-and-lock, has also appeared in a few retrospectives.
  • When Jon Pertwee agreed to reprise his role in 1995, the console room was overhauled – the walls were upgraded from simply having photocopied roundels on cardboard to using cut-out roundels on hardboard, while the console itself was upgraded from a small foot-long model to a full-sized one. Most scenes that had been filmed up to that point using the old console room were reshot using the new console/walls, however a few brief shots using the original walls can be seen in the 2009 DVD excerpt.
  • For at least the excerpt, the open and close are from the Second and Third Doctor eras, respectively.
  • The website claims that Devious was "something only intended for our friends to see and enjoy - the website being the documenting of the film-making experience - hence you may see images not clips from the production", implying that the finished product will never see mass release.
  • Devious and its production team were profiled on the BBC shows South Today in 2005 (although the show claimed production began in 1990) and South East Today in July 2009 (to coincide with the DVD release of The War Games). Clips from the production were also seen in the "making-of" feature on the video release of The Curse of Fatal Death.

Continuity

Timeline

External Links

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