Doctor Who at the Cinema

Hey, everybody! Happy Saturday to you all! Hope you’re having a great weekend! WELLLLL…as great as it CAN be before finals week. Next week is NOT going to be fun! BUT, look at it this way: if we can just get past this next week, then school will be over for the YEAR. We won’t have any more school until 2014! Just one more week!

But until then, let’s take a little breather from Dead Week and talk about Doctor Who! I gotta tell you all about our day at the cinema because we had an interesting day, to say the least.

Monday, November 25th was a VERY exciting day! My sister and I were going to see the 50th anniversary of Doctor! Again!! But this time, in 12-D 3-D! It was the very last day the 50th anniversary would be available on the big screen, so this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I’m SO glad we were able to go!

The cinema was about a two-hour drive for us, but since there was probably going to be the whole traffic factor, and given that the cinema was close to a big city (nope. not going to tell you which city! Internet safety first!), we left about three or four hours before we needed to be there. It’s a good thing we left early because we got to the cinema about an hour before the show started. That gave us time to hit the mall that the cinema was right next to, and grab a bite to eat. Or at least TRY to get a bite to eat. I was so excited/anxious that I could barely stomach down four or five bites of food. Even though we had seen the episode before. XD

Funny story about us at the mall. It was the 50th anniversary, as you know. WELLLLL, a celebration of the 50th anniversary. And I had my fez with me that I was going to wear in the cinema, as part of my dressing up. I thought to myself, “Well, hey. I’ll wear my fez IN the mall. There’s bound to be other Whovians walking about here and they’ll take notice and we’ll get all excited seeing each other and just be all like, ‘Hey, see you later at the theater!'” No one else noticed. In fact, I don’t think any Whovians of any sort were there in the mall at all. And come the time we got to the food court, I noticed people from other countries ordering food and what not. And then I thought to myself, “You know. There are probably some people who would be REALLY offended by seeing a GIRL wearing a FEZ in public. They might not know of the fandom or the show.” So I very sheepishly removed my fez and humbly sat it on the table while we ate. And I felt a bit wretched ’cause that’s the LAST thing I want to do is to offend anybody. But if I did, it’s not a HUGE deal because that mall is pretty far from where we live. We’re probably not going back there again anytime soon. So that made me feel a little better.

But I was quick to put the fez back on when we went back to the cinema. There weren’t as many people there as I thought there were going to be, let alone people who dressed up. One boy actually came up to me and asked me why I was wearing the fez. Good gracious, do these people really not know what Doctor Who is??

My sister and I gleefully turned in our tickets, got our 3-D glasses and headed back to our screen. THEN we found out why we didn’t see anyone dressed up in the lobby. All the cosplayers were already there sitting down. In fact, the place was practically packed full! My sister and I stood there for a few minutes just trying to find TWO seats for us! We finally just went for the gung-ho front seats. We sat probably about five rows from the screen.

We had about 15 minutes until everything started, and we had fun reading the trivia facts that were up on the screen. At one point, one of the theater people came in, announcing to everyone that they had a full house that night so he was asking people to make room for others who were coming in. That was crazy! It made me even more glad that we got our tickets when we did!

The show eventually started. OH MY WORD!! THE STRAX VIDEO WAS ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC!!! I have never laughed so hard at a cinema IN MY LIFE!! “Million tiny screams.” XD I LOVE STRAX SO MUCH!!!

The little pre-video was a lot of fun too. The entire theater went completely BERSERK with the screams of groups of fangirls when Ten showed up on the screen. He really is loved by many.

And then they whole Zygon detector thing was a lot of fun. Our facial furniture was functioning as it should. 😉

As the episode got started, however, I quickly realized that something was wrong.

The 3-D wasn’t working.

Seriously, the 3-D wasn’t working! I don’t know how 3-D does NOT work, but it definitely wasn’t working! The screen was all blurry, the whole double image thing going on. Like the screen was trying to 3-D, but it was failing miserably My head started to hurt from watching it.

Me and my nerdy brain then instantly started to freak out, and (LOL!) the FIRST thought that popped into my head was, “Oh no. My brain’s messed up. I’VE WATCHED TOO MANY 3-D MOVIES AND NOW MY BRAIN CAN’T PROCESS THE 3-D-NESS ANYMORE!!” That’s literally what I started out with! XD

Then my thoughts moved to the glasses. Maybe the glasses weren’t working. But we did the Zygon detector thing. The glasses SHOULD be working. Maybe I should go and ask for new ones, just in case. I tried my sister’s glasses on, and hers were doing the same thing. The screen was still blurry. I sat back in my seat and I may have panicked internally for a moment or two. We paid $30 to see this episode. And now THIS was happening. SHOULD I go and see about getting new glasses?

Then, it got to the scene where the helicopter was flying the TARDIS over the Thames and London and all that. RIGHT at the exact instant when it went to that scene, the 3-D suddenly turned on! I noticed because everyone in the theater started cheering and clapping. I guess they were having the same problem too.

Good grief! XD

The episode was AMAZING, once the 3-D was on! There was more depth to the picture, and it looked like we were actually there with all the characters as everything was happening.

My favorite thing with the 3-D was actually the most terrifying thing. The Daleks. OH. MY WORD. The Daleks were TERRIFYING. I’m scared to death of the Daleks as it is, but having those stinkin’ eye stalks pointing OUT of the screen STRAIGHT AT YOUR STINKIN’ FACE, AND YOU’RE FACE TO FACE WITH THE DALEKS…I literally froze in my seat in terror! It looked so real, and I felt just like that little Gallifreyan girl, cowering to the ground in fear at the sight of it. Oh, it was great!

I’ve already told you all about my thoughts on the episode, so I don’t need to go over that again. It was obvious that this was the first time a lot of the Whovians had seen the episode, though. It was a lot of fun hearing their reactions. They burst out laughing at all the proper times and they cheered when favorite actors came on. Everyone’s favorite line was, “Timey wimey?” “I have no idea where he picks up that kind of stuff.” The whole theater went wild with laughter. The theater also gave a VERY enthusiastic cheer and round of applause when Twelve showed up, but it positively EXPLODED when Tom Baker came on screen! There was someone who started sniffling then too. There was also a collective, “AWWWW!” from all the fangirls when Ten said, “I don’t want to go.” That…that’s just such a kick in the feels. Wretched. Wretched feels.

There was an applause when the episode was over, and then we were treated to a behind the scenes look at the making of The Day of the Doctor. That was a lot of fun. Everyone got a kick out of seeing Paul McGann wishing Doctor Who a Happy 50th, and seeing Colin Baker as he wrapped up the narrating. That was awesome, seeing him!

So that’s our story of our experience at the cinema with Doctor Who. It was absolutely wonderful, and I won’t soon forget any of it. I saved the movie ticket. 🙂 Did any of you guys go to see The Day of the Doctor at the theater? My best friend and fellow blogger saw the 50th for the first time on Monday, and she has some very interesting thoughts on it .

So, the season of the 50th anniversary has ended, and we’re moving into the brand new season of the Christmas special.

And there was a collective groan of misery and anguish from all the Whovians around the world. :p

I gotta say, the ELEVEN second trailer is pretty epic, if you ignore the fact of what’s actually going to happen in that episode. Here it is, if you haven’t seen it yet.

But seriously, though, the further we go into December, the more shaky and unpredictable my feels get. As we get closer to Christmas, the feels get more and more fragile, like a bomb. I feel like the few days right before Christmas, at the SLIGHTEST disturbance, I could go off. Are you guys getting that too?

And may I just say that the song Silent Night has been COMPLETELY ruined for me this year!! After seeing the fan-made posters, with the fan-made title “Silent Night”, I just can’t even anymore. Josh Groban’s version of Silent Night was the first version of the song I listened to this year, so I didn’t know at the time what I was in for. I nearly died. Really, I almost sat on the bed and started crying. And now, whenever the song comes up on Pandora, I’m just all “NOPE” and I skip it. It’s too much! It’s just too much! *shakes fist* MOFFAT!!! Yet ANOTHER thing you’ve ruined for me!

And I’ve already had TWO dreams about the Christmas special! I think it’s my brain telling me that I’m still in denial about Matt Smith leaving. That denial is going to catch up with me, though. When it actually happens, I might have to have a defibrillator on hand to revive myself. I JUST DON’T WANT MATT SMITH TO GO!! D’X

But then, of course, the good news about the Christmas special is that we’re getting closer and closer to the era of the Twelfth Doctor. I’M SO EXCITED ABOUT THE TWELFTH DOCTOR, YOU HAVE NO IDEA!! They’re going to start filming the eighth series sometime this month, probably VERY soon actually, ’cause they have to factor in Christmas break and all that. And it SOUNDS like we’ll be starting off the new series next August. Exciting stuff!! 😀

So the hour of our doom on Christmas day, for us American Whovians will be at 9:00 PM Eastern time. We have…what is math…18 days until our dear Eleven regenerates. About two and a half weeks. 😦

So, as far as Whoblogging goes (hehehe, I like that word. Is that even a word?), I’ll talk about any new developments I notice with series 8 news, if there are any, on Saturdays. If not, this’ll probably be the last post about Doctor Who until next year. So a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, to you all, my fellow Whovians! All my sympathies go out to you, in advance, for the big day. We’re all in this together. *sniffle*

50. The Day of the Doctor

THE DAY IS HERE, EVERYBODY. THE DAY IS HERE. The moment we have all been waiting so patiently for (hopefully), the day that we has been the constant topic of conversation and the most anticipated day of 2013–certainly the most anticipated day for Doctor Who, period–has AT LONG LAST arrived!!

Gracious, I’m getting crazy butterflies just sitting here writing this. It’s going to take me WEEKS to recover from this episode. It was POSITIVELY SPLENDIFEROUS!! Absolutely perfect in EVERY SINGLE WAY POSSIBLE! Steven Moffat!! WELL DONE, SIR! You GENIUS!!! How do you keep being so brilliant?? This is Moffat’s best episode to date! It really is! The story was MAGNIFICENT and all the Doctors together…AAAGGGHHH! It was just fantastic!

So! Premise of the story! It’s the end of the Time War for John Hurt’s Doctor, and he’s trying to decide whether to destroy Gallifrey or not. He stole a machine called The Moment that he was going to use to perform the deed. Suddenly, the “conscience” of the machine comes to life, in the form of Rose Tyler, and she takes him into his future to see what kind of man he’ll be in the future, after he’s destroyed Gallifrey.

Blimey, there’s SO MUCH to talk about! So Clara and the Doctor are still on a tentative schedule, as far as time traveling goes. Meaning Clara doesn’t live in the TARDIS with the Doctor 24/7 like Rose, Martha and Donna did. She apparently has a new job as a teacher. I didn’t quite catch if she liked the job. It sounded like she didn’t, but again, didn’t catch what she said.

The opening title!! I LOVED IT!! The words “Matt Smith” comes up on the screen as he flies by hanging on to the TARDIS. It was priceless! XD

Can I just say how BOSS Gallifreyan paintings are?? Of COURSE they would be bigger on the inside, hence the whole 3-D effect. That’s going to look SO COOL at the cinema in 3-D! That’s probably the thing I’m looking forward to the most when my sister and I go to see it on the big screen.

I don’t know how Moffat came up with the idea to go with the whole Doctor and Elizabeth I story, but it was a GREAT idea! They were quite an amusing couple. Bess was absolutely infatuated with Ten, but Ten didn’t seem completely enthusiastic about the whole thing. The fact that he couldn’t tell her apart from the Zygon was a clue, I think, that their whole relationship was a mistake.

Okay, Zygons are absolutely terrifying! They’re shapeshifters, I guess. They can take the form of any living thing and assimilate their personalities, so as to avoid discovery. Things got confusing very quickly. They’re the perfect “Moffat monster” and I’m VERY surprised that Moffat hasn’t brought them in sooner. He could do so many evil things with those creatures. Oh dear…

So this is the story of how all three of the Doctors came together. I guess it was The Moment that created those time fissures, tears in reality, that enabled them all to be together. THE FEZ RETURNED! AGAIN!!! And it was absolutely FANTASTIC to see Ten put it on! Tee hee! John Hurt had the opportunity to put the fez on. I was sitting there on the couch saying, “Put the fez on, John. JAWN!! Put on the fez!” But he never did. You had ONE opportunity, John. ONE! :p

I LOVED John Hurt’s Doctor SO MUCH!! He was TERRIFIC. Just…perfectly terrific! His character was actually a bit unexpected for me. I was expecting him to be this really grim and gruff Doctor, but he actually had a good bit of “twinkle” in him too. And it was wonderful!! He was serious enough to be the show stealer we know him to be (he really does steal the spotlight with just a look), but he also still had that playful, childlike side to him. Oh goodness! I loved him!!

And Ten and Eleven together…oh my goodness! There couldn’t have been a better pairing. They played off each other so well, and it was so interesting to watch the differences and similarities between them, all in the same scene. Ten and Eleven are so similar, but they’re also VERY, VERY different. It looked like Matt Smith and David Tennant had a blast acting together.

One thing the episode did NOT do was explain WHY ON EARTH THE MOMENT’S “CONSCIENCE” LOOKED LIKE ROSE! It was very evident that we were not seeing Rose Tyler, but somebody else entirely. Which makes sense ’cause I’ve heard Moffat isn’t a Rose Tyler fan. So I applaud him for indulging the fans with Billie Piper coming back. But at the same time, he couldn’t have Rose Tyler in there, ’cause he doesn’t like her, so he went all clever with her character and gave her a completely different role that I don’t understand, to be honest. Is she supposed to be Bad Wolf? The Moment is supposed to be Bad Wolf? How can that be? If anyone can shed any light–theories, anything–to help us understand. ‘Cause I was completely confused. But I liked her character, whoever she was! She was kinda like Idris in The Doctor’s Wife.

That scene in the Tower of London with the door was priceless!! It’s SO like the Doctor to spend hours and hours, potentially, on a door, trying to figure out how to open it, despite the fact that sonic screwdrivers don’t work on wood, only to find that the door is actually unlocked. Classic!! That made my life so much! XD

Was anyone else almost crying when John Hurt’s Doctor went back to Gallifrey, and Ten and Eleven joined him to push the “big red button”? They decided to be there too so he wouldn’t have to do it alone. MY FEELS!!! It was heartbreaking!! They all were going to be part of the darkest day of the Doctor’s life. His home, his family, his friends, everything that was familiar to him, everything he grew up with he was on the brink of annihilating.

Except…a thing happened.

Who was it who had the idea? Clara? Ten? Eleven? All of them? I don’t remember who it was ’cause I was caught up in the moment (PUN! Haha! Anyway…), but someone came up with the BRILLIANT idea to throw in a little surprise for the Daleks. One last battle maneuver in the Time War. Freeze Gallifrey in, what was it, a time lock or a parallel universe, that would make the planet disappear and make the Daleks THINK that it was destroyed.

GALLIFREY WOULD BE SAFE. In a nutshell.

GALLIFREY WOULD BE SAFE.

Before I go on, I have a point I’d like to talk about. The Day of the Doctor wasn’t a typical Moffat episode where there’s one HUGE mindblowing thing at the end. Instead, there was a series of little mindblowing things scattered here and there all over the episode. It was a lot of fun! The first mindblowing thing was where we find out that the Zygons were the things that got out of the paintings and THEY were what was under the sheets in that one room. A VERY The Time of Angels moment!

The next moment was with the whole door scene, where John Hurt’s Doctor was talking about software on the sonic screwdriver, and how it would take centuries to download. But of course, since they were all there, Eleven being himself centuries older than John Hurt, has had time for the software to download, and it was actually completed on his screwdriver!  That was one of those gradual realization moments, and it was fantastic!

(I AM going somewhere with this, by the way. Just so you know.)

There was another mindblowing moment that was more of a “OF COURSE!” moment with the painting. I had a feeling that the two names for it, “No More” and “Gallifrey Falls”, would amount to something, but I didn’t know what it would be. Then the curator came along and put the two titles together: “Gallifrey Falls No More”. OF COURSE! Of course, the two titles could be put together! And it makes a beautiful title, I must say!

There’s different types of mindblowing moments with Moffat, I’m realizing. :p

And finally, the last one was with freezing Gallifrey. With just three TARDISes, it would be impossible, but with multiple TARDISes, they could do it. Now again, I was caught up in the moment, so I didn’t catch how all the Doctors were there with their TARDIS. But there they were, all of them there to save their home planet.

Nine was there. NINE WAS THERE!! I squealed in pure delight. HE WAS THERE!! I was as happy as can be.

But THEN…

TWELVE!!! THE TWELFTH DOCTOR!!! ASDFGHJKLKJHGFDSA!!!

I literally SCREAMED at the television. The kind of scream that you instantly regret because it was so loud and ridiculous. XD BUT HE WAS THERE!!! OH MAH WORD!!! I was hoping, and secretly suspecting, that we would catch a sneak peek of Twelve here in the 50th. I saw a post on Facebook that got my suspicions up. AND THEN IT HAPPENED!! It was definitely my favorite part of the episode. 😀

So I had gotten everything out of the episode I wanted. WELLLLL, almost everything. We got all the classic Doctors into the episode, in a way, which was something I was secretly hoping Moffat would do. But we were so close, SO CLOSE, to seeing a Hurt-to-Eccleston regeneration! It was there! It was happening! But we didn’t get to see it all the way through. 😦 Oh well. I’m just glad that, again, Moffat indulged the fans, because I’m almost certain that he’s heard that the fans have been crying out for a regeneration scene.

We got to see Tom Baker at the end of the episode too! That was just a fun scene ’cause we didn’t know who it was going to be showing up. It was great. 🙂

I liked how the story covered the Doctor’s tracks in this episode. Since they all weren’t supposed to be there, whenever they left, they would forget what happened there. Since the Daleks believed that Gallifrey was destroyed, so would the Doctor. Simple as that. Nothing complicated. It makes perfect sense. Nine was the aggressive Doctor he was because he actually thought he had killed everyone. But he didn’t. It’s actually kind of a good thing he didn’t remember because if that secret got out, that Gallifrey wasn’t destroyed and was still out there, the results could be catastrophic!

Moffat was NOT kidding when he said that this episode changes all of Doctor Who from here on out. Gallifrey’s out there! It’s not destroyed, the Doctor still has a home and everyone is still alive. SO. MUCH. YUS. EVERYTHING changes from here! It means the Doctor has to go out there and find Gallifrey again. Twelve, that’s going to be your job! 😉 Oh my goodness, I’m SO EXCITED!!! We’re possibly going to be actually seeing episodes ON GALLIFREY next series! HOW COOL IS THAT!!! Oh, it’s going to be beautiful to watch!

Okay, what was your favorite part of the episode? Any thoughts that you have?

I was so excited afterwards, so full of joy that I was shaking! Actually shaking! A new type of reaction to Doctor Who for me. :p I CAN’T WAIT to see it again on Monday at the movie theater! It’s going to be AMAZING!!

A million thanks to you, Steven Moffat, and everyone else who helped make this 50th anniversary episode. You truly performed wonders with it, and it couldn’t have been more perfect. You are GENIUSES, the lot of you! 🙂

HAPPY 50TH ANNIVERSARY, DOCTOR WHO!!!! ❤ ❤

41. John Hurt, Bad Wolf and Fezzes, Oh My!

41 posts down, 9 more to go. We’re in the single digits now! Yay!! And we have two weeks, TWO. WEEKS. until The Day of the Doctor airs all over the world!!

Speaking of The Day of the Doctor…

IT’S FINALLY HERE!!! THE TRAILER!! IT’S OUT!!! OUR WAITING HAS FINALLY COME TO AN END!!!

Actually, we got two different trailers. One that was actually leaked last night and another much longer one that’s from BBC One. It’s all felt like a volcano kind of. The trailers have been held back from us for so long, to the point of the fandom almost bursting. And now that they’re being released, all of a sudden it’s like an explosion, and it’s like, “Oh, here! Have not one, but TWO trailers! AND another one is coming out tomorrow!” It’s absolutely fantastic! Our waiting has definitely payed off. 🙂

Okay, raise of hands, how many of you watched the leaked trailer last night? No need to feel ashamed. Actually, I kinda do a little bit ’cause we only had a few hours left to wait. I could have waited a few more hours to watch it. But at the same time NOPE! There’s no chance I was going to wait, and I mostly regret nothing, having watched it early. Besides, all my other Whovian friends had seen it anyway, so WHY NOT. :p

My sister informed me that actually the trailer had been leaked out earlier, but BBC was ONTO them! Faster than the Vashta Nerada on a chicken leg! As soon as they saw any trailers of any sort being leaked, they would pounce on them and take them down. It was absolutely ferocious! But I love how BBC really tried to not get any spoilers out ahead of time.

Okay, Katelyn. Shut up! We’ve got important things to talk about! VERY important things!

Okay, let’s talk about these GORGEOUS beauties!

First beauty:

So it looks like a good deal of the episode is going to be about the Time War. I almost started crying seeing Gallifrey at war. These are Gallifrey’s last days. This is the darkest moment of the Doctor’s life, and it’s going to be positively terrible seeing it happen. It’ll be like Spock watching Vulcan being destroyed, except here we’re going to be on the planet and see everything actually happen. It’s an extremely heartbreaking thought, but at the same time VERY intriguing because it’s obviously been a crucial part of the Doctor’s life, but we’ve only heard him talk about it. Now we get to see what actually happened, what led him to destroy the whole planet.

That red jewel thing that’s called The Moment, from what I’ve heard. I’m assuming that’s what finishes everything. The big, threatening button that must NEVER be pushed under ANY circumstance. Wow, that just made The Christmas Invasion really sad! Let’s change subjects.

THE FEZ!!! The fez is returning! Again! And it looks like Ten quite approves of it. But why wouldn’t he? Fezzes are cool! And both he and Eleven are wearing glasses in that scene! SO CUTE!! I loved it!

And then there’s the whole Rose thing. BAD WOLF! BAD WOLF, BAD WOLF, BAD WOLF, BAD WOLF! Her eyes were glowing! She was Bad Wolf!! I wonder what that means? Does it mean she has something to do with the destruction of Gallifrey, since as Bad Wolf she can destroy everything? Or maybe she gets rid of all the Daleks again. Who knows? We’ll just have to wait and see.

We didn’t see much of Clara in the trailer. We just see her push some type of button and then she vanishes. Hmmm…

Okay. We gotta talk about John Hurt now. Honestly, I think he’s the thing I’m most looking forward to in the 50th anniversary. Who is he??

I instantly loved him as the Doctor, just after seeing him in The Name of the Doctor. But then I heard him talk in the trailer and my inner fangirl went berserk. He SOUNDS like the Doctor! “I’m looking for the Doctor.” The way he says it! HE’S PERFECT. ABSOLUTELY PERFECT. Steven Moffat said in an article that John Hurt can steal the show with just his eyes. I BELIEVE IT. I mean, just look at him! All he has to do is just BE THERE and you can see all the age and pain the Doctor has experienced in his eyes. It’s absolutely beautiful! Just…JOHN HURT!!! I CAN’T WAIT!!!

All this happened within 41 seconds.

I had to literally tell myself to breathe after watching the trailer! My lungs ceased to function by the time I saw John Hurt and from then on. By the time the trailer was over, I was literally speechless and flailing my hands like a dying bug.

Then my sister and I watched it again.

And again.

And I’m certain I watched it at least 3 or 4 times that night before going to bed.

All in all, I’ve probably watched the trailer like 10 times since yesterday. And it’s beautiful every time.

Then today, because the excitement of that first trailer wasn’t enough, BBC released ANOTHER trailer!

 

*dies*

It’s a lot longer than the other trailer, but it’s pretty similar to the other one. But it did have a few other scenes. Eleven showing Ten the new sonic screwdriver and Ten seeing the new TARDIS.

“Oh! You’ve redecorated! I don’t like it.” WHAT?!?! Eleven and I made the same face when Ten said that. D: He seemed to like the sonic screwdriver, though. Ten’s face! Tee hee! XD

Oh my goodness, it all had me having giggling fits–gigging fits almost as bad as the day when Peter Capaldi was announced as the next Doctor.

This picture haunts me SO MUCH, though:

It’s that moment. The fateful moment when the Doctor ends the War and destroys his home. And the look on the Doctor’s face! He’s dreading it so much! He looks so sad, like he knows he has no other option. It’s gonna be a tear jerker!

So those were the first two trailers that have been released.  Apparently tomorrow, BBC is releasing the trailer that was shown at this year’s Comic-Con. More epicness is on the way!

I think that about wraps it up for the trailer bit. I failed to mention this at the beginning of the post, but for the month of November at least, Saturdays are going to be Doctor Who days–days when I talk about any Whoniverse news. Up until the 50th anniversary. It might continue after that. I’m not sure yet.

So as far as this week’s news goes, there’s a BUNCH of stuff going on, so pay attention! :p

First, foremost and most important! Air times have been announced for The Day of the Doctor! It’s coming on at 7:50 pm for the UK, which makes the time 2:50 ET/1:50 pm C for us Americans. I’ve heard that it’s also running with no commercials! So we get to have a completely uninterrupted 75 minutes of feels! Oh, happy day!! :p

Second, BBC America is doing what they’re calling a Doctor Who Takeover week, where practically everything they’re going to be playing is Doctor Who. YUS!! The schedule for everything that’s going to be playing, INCLUDING AN ADVENTURE IN SPACE AND TIME, is right here .

Also, there’s going to be a minisode, apparently? The news wasn’t all that clear, but the main thing I caught was that it’s happening on the 16th. It didn’t mention BBC America, but it did say something about being posted on YouTube, so keep your eyes open. Word is that another Doctor’s going to be in it. A DOCTOR OTHER THAN TEN, ELEVEN OR JOHN HURT. Theories are flying around left and right. Some people are saying McGann, others are saying Eccleston. My theory is that it’s going to actually be Capaldi, but we’ll see, once it comes out.

No new word of Peter Capaldi, by the way, sadly, but I’m sure he’s just as thrilled about the 50th anniversary as we are. Everything’s kind of slowed down on his part, while the 50th is going on, but I’m sure once December kicks in, there will be PLENTY of new goodies!

Well, I think that’s about it for now. Happy compulsive trailer watching! :p Be on the lookout for the new trailer tomorrow! Vale!

 

33. Ticket Trauma

33 posts down, 17 to go. 28 days until the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who!! 😀

Speaking of the 50th anniversary, I have a story to share with all of you about the complete MADNESS that ensued yesterday. My experience with purchasing movie tickets for The Day of the Doctor was quite an adventure, as I’m sure yours was too.

It all started when BBC America announced the big cities that would be screening the simulcast on November 23rd. To my great joy, one of those cities was relatively close by (no, I’m not going to tell you which city. creepers and all that. internet safety first.)! Eventually, word was sent out about when tickets would be going on sale. The big day was October 26th at 9 am.

Nine in the morning! I’m SO there!!

So, the big day dawned. I got up bright and early at 7 o’clock, which is a normal time for me to get up, by the way, because of school. I spent about an hour on Facebook and Tumblr, waking up and mentally preparing for the day. I actually got out of bed around eight and I went downstairs to make myself a bowl of oatmeal and a cup of English breakfast tea. I then brought my breakfast upstairs to my room and stationed myself in my chair in front of the laptop. And I waited.

I had my mom’s credit card with me on hand because I had no method of payment because I’m a poor, broke college student. :p

So I had my oatmeal, I had my tea, I had my method of payment. I was READY.

I passed the time by searching for the correct website to purchase the tickets on. Which is probably something I should have done the night before, but I had time so it was okay. So I had two tabs open on my computer, one on Facebook and one on the Cinemark website. And I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Thirteen minutes. Eat a few bites of oatmeal. Check back on Facebook. Try to calm nerves. Freak out. Check the time again.

Still thirteen minutes left.

Slowly, SO painfully, excruciatingly slowly, time dragged on.

FIVE MINUTES. MY NERVES CANNOT BE CALMED.

Might as well check back on the Cinemark website to see if the link POSSIBLY was open five minutes early.

It wasn’t.

Check back on the time. STILL FIVE MINUTES LEFT.

UUUUUGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!

By this time I’m having a hard time eating my oatmeal because I’m so excited. But I managed to finish it.

AT LONG LAST, 9:00!!!

I rushed back to the website. Link still wasn’t open. I tried refreshing the page. Still nothing.

Drat.

Eventually, I just clicked on the “movies” tab and tried looking for it on that different page, and THANKFULLY it was there. I clicked on it (WHY IS INTERNET EXPLORER SO STINKIN’ SLOW??) and it took me to the showtimes page.

This is what the page tells me: “Please choose your city, state or zip code.”

GAAAHHHH!!!! *aggressively types in city and state* *clicks enter* INTERNET EXPLORER, COME ON!!! I’M ON A TIGHT SCHEDULE HERE!! LOAD THE CITY!!

The city shows up, and the time is listed underneath the Day of the Doctor title. I clicked on it and it took me to the purchase page.

PHEW! I’m safe! For now. I know I have to get our order in FAST, though, because tickets can sell out at any time. It was really cool looking at the ticket prices! They were nowhere near as expensive as I thought they were going to be. Praise the Lord! So I went in and got two tickets (’cause it would be just me and my sister going) and I went in to checkout.

My sister was up and awake by then so I thought it would be nice for her if she could do the honors of clicking the “checkout” button. She was brushing her teeth or something, though, so I waited for her, knowing that this was an INCREDIBLY stupid decision I was making. Tickets can go at any time, I just needed to do it all myself. But I didn’t. I waited for her and she eventually came in and clicked the button. Then it went to the next page. Big red bar at the top of the screen.

“Tickets are sold out for this event.”

I could feel my heart LITERALLY stop for a split second.

I tried checking out again like three times, JUST TO BE SURE that someone didn’t decide to drop their ticket and open it up for grabs.

Like THAT would happen!

But I still got the same response every time. “Tickets are sold out for this event.”

I didn’t really look down at the time because I was literally in panic mode by that time, but I know it was somewhere between 9:05 and 9:10 at that moment. We’re talking MINUTES here! Within MINUTES tickets were COMPLETELY sold out!

My memory then went back to earlier this year, when I had the exact same sort of thing happen. It was New Album season for us Josh Groban fans (Grobanites, we call ourselves) and Josh Groban had just released his tour dates. And being part of the special fan club, I had special access to presales. So I went onto the website the day presales started, right at the time it said tickets would be up. I wasn’t necessarily going in to buy tickets, I was just seeing what the prices were, because Josh Groban concert tickets can get PRETTY expensive. In the course of the few minutes it took me to turn on the computer and get to the website, practically EVERYTHING was sold out! Only a few straggling seats remained. MINUTES was all it took! So I went into this whole Day of the Doctor thing knowing that I needed to be on top of things and just go through as fast as I could to buy tickets. But even with that all in mind, tickets still sold out.

Okay, so THEN it was a matter of “Okay, let’s just look for theaters that are playing on Monday, November 25th then. It’s better than nothing.” The closest theater to us was already sold out. The NEXT closest theater we couldn’t even find a link for. GAAAAAHHHHH!!! FINALLY, we found a theater that still had tickets available and that wasn’t too far of a drive. For the 23rd, it would have been about a 4 hour drive, but for this place, it’s about 2 hours. Not TOO shabby.

Okay, BREATHE, Katelyn!! You got tickets. Time to calm your feels now.

Eventually, I did calm down, but then I was left with this feeling of TERRIBLE remorse! I should have just went as fast as I could through checkout, I shouldn’t have waited for my sister. If I hadn’t waited, we might have tickets for the 23rd. There’s no worse feeling in the world than feeling that things would have been better if you didn’t make that one mistake.

Attempting to console myself, I went back onto Facebook and went onto a Doctor Who group page to see what other people were saying. It was practically a group therapy session in there! Pretty much EVERYONE was having problems! They were running into websites not working and/or just buying tickets for the 25th. There were SEVERAL people talking about this. I probably saw only ONE person who actually got tickets for the 23rd. So that made me feel a LOT better that I wasn’t the only one. There was even one person who was trying to buy tickets in the same city as I was, so we were in the same boat.

I don’t think American theaters were expecting us American Whovians AT ALL! I bet they thought that it was just a wee fandom, that only a medium-sized crowd might show up and they might make some profit from this. But THEN they had websites crashing and ticket sales malfunctioning. They don’t know Whovians’ strength! Muahahahaha!!!

So yeah, it’s disappointing we weren’t able to get tickets for the 23rd, but it’s not the end of the world. It’s still being simulcast on TV and we’re still seeing it in theaters, just on a different day. Plus, now that we’re staying at home to watch it, my whole family can watch it together, as opposed to having me and my sister at a theater and everyone else at home. That’s a better way of watching it, I think–with the family. It’s a family show. Another little thought I had was that IF we DID get tickets for the 23rd, I would probably feel really bad for the majority of those who weren’t able to get them. I would rather be part of the crowd than aloof from it.

So yeah. That’s MY story! SUCH a traumatizing whirlwind! I think I might still be recovering from it. But we conquered in the end. AND I’M SO EXCITED FOR NOVEMBER 25TH!!!! 😀 Does anyone else have any stories about buying Day of the Doctor tickets?

On a last note, allow me to extend an EXTRA big congratulations to those who were able to get November 23rd tickets! You guys are CRAZY lucky and I hope you have an absolutely fantastic time!! 😀