View source for Local fans to throw 'Con'

{{article
| publication = Wilmington Star-News
| file = 1983-02-27 Star-News.jpg
| px = 450
| height = 
| width = 
| date = 1983-02-27
| author = Ben Steelman
| pages = 9B
| language = English 
| type = 
| description = 
| categories = conventions
| moreTitles = 
| morePublications = 
| moreDates = 
| text = 
Fans of Doctor Who, the tongue-in-cheek British science fiction serial, will be gathering Saturday at Winter Park Presbyterian Church for "DOCTORCON II," the second annual convention of the Wilmington Doctor Who Club.

For a $1 admission fee, participants can watch videotapes of classic Doctor Who episodes, shop for an array of souvenirs and even participate in a costume contest.

Contestants may dress as any character in the Doctor Who series; however, for reasons of safety, no costumes may involve electricity.

The "Con" runs from 11 a.m to 7 p.m. in the church at 4501 Wrightsville Ave.

Doctor Who airs at 6 p.m. weekdays on [[broadwcast:UNC-TV|WUNJ-TV 39]] and other stations of the UNC Center for Public Television.

Starting Tuesday, the series will air the first episode of "[[broadwcast:Logopolis|Logopolis]]," the first adventure of the latest Doctor Who season and the first starring Peter Davison as the Doctor.

Davison, 30, is best known as the veterinarian Tristan from the PBS version of All Creatures Great and Small. He replaces Tom Baker. the fourth actor to play the title character since the scenes began in 1963 and the one most familiar to American fans.

As part of public television's "Festival '83" fund-raising drive, WUNJ will also broadcast a special for Doctor Who fans, [[broadwcast:Once Upon a Time Lord|Once Upon a Time Lord]], at noon on Sunday, March 6, and again at 6 p.m. on March 7, prior to the regular Doctor Who episode.

Filmed lost year at a Doctor Who convention in Chicago, Once Upon a Time Lord includes clips from the series' 20-year run. Among those interviewed are Davison, producer John Nathan-Turner, scriptwriter Terry Nation (the creator of the Doctor's chief adversaries, the evil Daleks) and actor Anthony Ailey, who plays The Master, another recurring villain.

Produced by the British Broadcasting Corp., Doctor Who began as a children's drama.

However, the high quality of its writing, its stylish productions within low budgets and its off-beat, often satirical humor soon attracted a cult of adult followers. The BBC estimates that at least 60 percent of its viewers are grown-ups.

According to the UNC Center for Public Television, an estimated 7 million Americans watch the series.

Doctor Who — his real name is d<sup>3</sup>Sigma-x<sup>3</sup>— is a Time Lord, a native of the planet Gallifrey, where time-and-space travel has been raised to near-perfection.

He travels through the galaxy — and forward and backward through time — in a TARDIS (short for Time and Relative Dimensions in Space).

Most TARDISes can assume any form, yet for some reason Doctor Who's has become stuck in the shape of a London police call box — about the size of an American telephone booth.

Inside, however, the TARDIS is an enormous craft, with a control room, laboratory and living quarters for the Doctor and the many Earthlings who travel with him from time to time.

At first, the Doctor was portrayed as an elderly man. Later, he went through a series of physical "regenerations" (usually coinciding with the replacement of the lead actor, and gradually grew younger in the process.

Tom Baker assumed the role in the mid-1970s, and fans soon began copying his mannerisms — the floppy hat, dangling scarf, Harpo Marx hairstyle and Groucho Marx wit

However, according to Paul Boyce of UNC Public Television. the new Doctor Who is markedly different. Abandoning hat, scarf and much beloved gadgetry like the "sonic screwdriver," he to more "human." less sure of himself and more reliant on his human sidekicks. 

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