I was flat on my stomach, stretched out on the floor of the family room, rummaging through the bottom cupboard of the TV stand – I was desperate. I pushed myself to my feet and darted to the bottom of the basement stairs. “Mom!” I bellowed.
No reply. I ran up the stairs. There were only nine minutes left.
“Mom,” I panted, as I burst into the kitchen. “Are we out of blank tapes?”
“Are there any downstairs?”
“No.”
“Did you check the closet?”
“Shit!” I raced downstairs and was back in the kitchen a moment later. “None.”
“Then we’re out.”
“But I have to tape today’s episodes – they’re really important.”
“Can’t you go to the store?”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s on in five minutes.”
My mother sighed, “You’ll just have to tape over something.”
I ran to my room and slid to a stop in front of the bookcase. A dozen tapes were neatly labelled and resting on the top shelf. All were filled with episodes of Sailor Moon – all except one. I picked up the tape on the far left and bit my lip. The tape was labelled in careful blue letters: Doctor Who Movie.
“Damn.” My eyes darted to the alarm clock next to the bed. Three minutes left. The tape felt heavy in my hand. How much would I regret taping over it? How much would I regret not taping those episodes of Sailor Moon?
It was an unhappy choice but I couldn’t have both. I headed back to the family room and stuck the tape in the VCR. That night, I crossed out “Doctor Who” and wrote in “Sailor Moon eps ?? - ??”.
More than a decade later, I can’t remember which episodes I taped that day. I’ve since resorted to watching clips of Paul McGann on YouTube.
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3 comments:
Hehe. My tape of the TV movie became much more valuable when I realised that it would never be released on home video in North America. Recently I had my dad transfer it to DVD, though now I can't find the DVD.
You could always order the DVD from England--though it'll be the edited version that they aired over there.
Thanks. I might break down and get it at some point - though I'll probably spring for some of the Big Finish audios first.
I actually didn't know the UK version was edited. One always expects it to be the other way around.
Yeah, when the TV movie originally aired in 1996, it was just two months after the Dunblane Primary School Massacre in Scotland, in the wake of which tragedy the BBFC (British Board of Film Censors) were given greatly expanded powers to withhold a certificate from a family/children's film (effectively banning the film) rather than simply awarding it a certificate for a higher age range than the filmmakers intended. To avoid this happening to the DW movie, the scene where Seven dies on the operating table was re-edited such that the piece of surgical wire (or whatever it was) no longer broke off and got left inside Seven's body. Which makes it a bit nonsensical when Eight proves he's the Doctor to Grace by pulling the wire out of a hole that spontaneously opens in his stomach.
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