Without a paddle
At no small personal risk to myself, let me outline the case for the most obvious manifestation of the covert Who sleepers – the Jonathan Creek/Who crossover.
The central character. A dissembling, eccentric, yet charismatic, intelligent and other-worldly character, he solves problems by thinking, eschews physical action/violence, and lives in an iconic/anachronistic “home”. Recall that windmill’s were once the hub of a village’s commerce, and the police box was the hub of civic law and order. Creek devises “magic cabinet” illusions in his home, and the Tardis is itself a magic cabinet. Creek’s long coat, an outmoded toggle duffle job, is not a far cry from the idiosyncratic frock coats of several Doctors.
Companions and “regeneration”. Jonathan Creek is a much more finite story. Not only are the delicately constructed plots of JC harder to put together, there is no way that the writer can get away with a regeneration when Alan Davies gets fed up, or demands too high a fee. So we have JC’s assistants regenerating instead, Maddy and Carla are the same person — she’s just moved from print to telly journalism. This move reflects the journey of many of the sleeper fans who started writing “fan fiction” and now find themselves making actual telly.
In Dr Who, the assistants/companions would leave and new one’s arrive, but just ONCE the assistant did regenerate. Romana played by Mary Tamm (who played “Vivian Brodie” in JC story “Satan’s Chimney”) regenerated into Lalla Ward. Tom Baker married, and later was divorced from, Lalla Ward. Alan Davies got engaged to Julia Sawalah (Carla), and they later broke off the engagement.
Casting. Peter Davison (Dr 5) had a high-profile appearance in one story, but there are deeper roots than this. Starting with the pilot episode of JC which concerns the mysterious death of an artist played by… Colin Baker. Baker was the 6th Doctor, and he enraged Who fans by first being crap at acting (though the poor dialogue he was given hardly helped), and second and most tellingly of all he refused to film his death and regeneration scene (because he had been sacked for the aforementioned being rubbish). We get a retread of this in JC because the conventions of TV murder mysteries is that you don’t initially get to see the death! Then as a reward, at the end of the show, we finally get what the fans had always wanted – Colin Baker getting shot. And a new Doctor is ready to step into place. When the new series of Dr Who was announced earlier this year, Alan Davies was firm favourite with the public for good reason.
Julia Sawalah has the added advantage of already having played the Dr’s assistant in the Comic Relief special “Curse of Fatal Death” which was written by Steven Moffatt, the writer of Press Gang where JS first came to prominence – and in that spoof the Dr regenerates into Joanna Lumley, Sawalah’s enemy in Jennifer Saunders’ AbFab. (Jennifer’s husband plays Carla’s husband in JC.) Moffatt is currently known as the writer of sitcom Coupling (and one of the new Dr Who shows), where David Renwick is still largely remembered as the writer of sitcom One Foot in the Grave.
Comic Relief also showed a final One Foot in the Grave sketch (by David Renwick) which was a reasonably skilfull riff on the Sixth Sense. Olivia Williams (who plays Bruce Willis bereaved wife) appears in a Sixth Sense skit (she playes the knocked down cyclist in the “there’s been an accident” bit) in british sitcom Spaced. That show also features Bill Bailey regularly as the owner of a comic shop, who’s back room is got to via a Dr Who police box, and Bill Bailey appears twice on JC (as Kenny Starkiss).
Writers. It’s another Davies, Russel T, that lies at the heart of the new Dr Who show, and his most recent success (on ITV) have been “Bob and Rose” which starred Alan Davies (and Jessica Stevenson, another Spaced tie-in), and “The Second Coming” starring Christopher Ecclestone (the new Doctor) as a man of unearthly origin who’s destiny is to save mankind.
War begets war
The Hutton Report had a great effect on the BBC. One major result was the return of Michael Grade. Speculation that the behaviour of eg Greg Dyke around the whole Hutton/Kelly/ can only be explained as a meticulously planned counter-conspiracy is both tasteless and entirely persuasive.
Now back as Chairman of the BBC, Grade has rumbled the sleeper Who fans, and through the new DG (Mark Thompson) has announced that the 3000 jobs (that have suspiciously swelled the BBC payroll in the last 8 years or so) are to go. The fight is getting dirty. If Ecclestone/Piper ever get to the small screen, you can be sure that only a small battle has been won, and the larger war continues.