TWIDW Update 9/19/02 - KTCA, WQED, BBC Kids, and Interstellar Transmissions Alerts
(posted 20th Sep 2002, 3:09am - TWIDW post #0120)

Well, it had to happen. A bunch of updates/changes/corrections occur within 24 hours after the column comes out. Here comes the good, the bad, and the ugly:

Bad news - KTCA 2 (TPT) St. Paul, MN http://www.tpt.org/ is cancelling Doctor Who at the end of this month. The final broadcast will be part 4 of Logopolis - airing at 11:30PM on Saturday, September 28 and 5:30AM on Sunday, September 29. TPT was announcing this before last week's Doctor Who episode aired. TPT (aka KTCA) resumed airing Doctor Who in 1999, and has run through the Tom Baker episodes. Viewers with digital TV have been able to see Doctor Who on KTCI-DT 16, subchannel 5 (mapped as 2.5 on most digital TVs), a simulcast of KTCA 2. All is not lost for viewers in the far northern and western regions of the Minneapolis/St. Paul viewing area. KAWE 9/KAWB 22 Bemidji/Brainerd, MN http://www.lakelandptv.org/ still airs one Doctor Who episode a week - Saturday at 8PM with a rerun Sunday at 11PM. It has been suggested (though completely unconfirmed) that Dish Network will eventually add KAWE 9 to the local stations package for Minneapolis/St. Paul subscribers.

Good news - WQED/WQEX 13,16 Pittsburgh, PA http://www.wqed.org/ has scheduled a special broadcast of Doctor Who for this weekend. Starting at Midnight, WQED/WQEX will air both episodes of Black Orchid, a story which apparently suffered from tape problems when it aired recently. WQED/WQEX was not originally scheduled to air Doctor Who this weekend. Arc Of Infinity part 4 will air next week as scheduled. This might be a good chance for Pittsburgh area viewers to thank WQED for keeping Doctor Who on the air. Send them an e-mail or write them a letter. Nothing like evidence of viewership (and in the case of PBS stations - pledges of money) does more to encourage stations when they decide at renewal time which shows to keep around.

Ugly - Oops. I made a mistake on the BBC Kids http://www.bbckids.ca/ listings. Canadians will not be getting Full Circle late Saturday night. Canadians will be getting The Leisure Hive in that slot. Full Circle won't air till late night on 28 September. While BBC Kids has not been perfect at airing stories in order, they are airing these stories in order right now.

Alert - Interstellar Transmissions http://www.interstellartransmissions.com/ has added a last minute guest for the Friday September 20 show. David Kemper, executive producer of Farscape, will be on during the second half of this radio sci-fi news/talk show to discuss the current status of the Farscape series, recently cancelled by the US Sci-Fi Channel http://www.scifi.com/ . If you're a fan of Farscape, you might want to tune in. The show airs live at 7PM Eastern Daylight Time US, and should be available to listen to on the Interstellar Transmissions site later. IT airs on WWNN AM1470 Pompano Beach, FL http://www.wnnhealthtalkradio.com/ and WBYU AM1450 New Orleans, LA http://www.bayou1450.com/ , with their own live audio streams that you can use to catch the show. Interstellar Transmissions' next Doctor Who guest will be Lars Pearson on September 27, talking about his book I Who 3.

Finally, there have been reports about a possible revival of Doctor Who next year. I've read the reports in several places, and the story tends to vary. Naturally I would favor the return of the series, though it would make producing This Week In Doctor Who much harder. Time will tell if this is anything serious, or just some off the cuff comments. Here is a direct link to a transcript of BBC1 chief Lorraine Heggessey's comments - http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho/news/02091801.shtml . Also, you can here her comments in RealPlayer - http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho/clips/heggessey_clip.shtml .

Until next week, or until more breaking updates happen, this has been This Week In Doctor Who.

Benjamin F. Elliott