FAN FILM REVIEWS: REAL DOCTOR, FAN STORY – DEVIOUS

Devious is probably the most famous and storied fan film out there. It’s a six episode serial made in the classic style, with 25 minute episodes.  It’s just not released yet.  The finished story, when it plays, will be 150 minutes, on a par with the Troughton and Pertwee stories.

Apart from that ambitious size and complexity, what makes it famous? For one thing, they managed to get Jon Pertwee to reprise his role as the Doctor back in 1995, a year before his death. That was his final performance as the Doctor, and perhaps his final performance ever. For that alone, it would be a part of history.

That scene from Devious appears as an extra on the ‘War Games’ DVD. It’s one of the few times that the amateurs ‘go pro’ – that a fan film makes it into the BBC official releases. Possibly, it’s the only time, I’d have to do more work than I want to, to verify that.

Jon Pertwee’s dialogue was later sampled with permission by Big Finish, for Zagreus, it’s multi-Doctor epic audio story.

Meanwhile, props from the fan film – the Doctor’s Tardis Console and several Daleks were borrowed by the BBC itself for use in 1999’s ‘Curse of Fatal Death.’ – the Tardis console did double duty, as the Master’s tardis console.

The Devious production also supplied props for a couple of stage plays – Evil of the Daleks and The Dalek Masterplan, both starring Nick Scovell as the Doctor, and adapted for stage by Scovell and Rob Thrush, back in 2006 and 2007.

Count in convention appearances, exhibitions, coverage in mainstream and fan media. It’s probably the most famous Doctor Who fan film ever… And it’s never been released.

So what the hell is it? Devious is a six part serial, set in Season 6B…..

 

WATCH IT NOW

Devious – War Games Short part one (7 minutes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0ceZgWLwG0

Devious – War Games Short part two (6 minutes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWTUCn3fp8Q

Devious Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgBjQjCqVZw

Devious Clips

The Never Was – A Fan Film Tribute with a Devious Twist (16 minutes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wK7hnzlIyE

Season 6B – A Fan Made Documentary


4 comments

  1. I’m not sure if anyone’s reading this stuff.  But just in case…  I have to take a week off.  I’m travelling and in Court.   So no new reviews for a while.  Back in a week or so.

  2. @DenValdron

    Aw. Aw. This was lovely -one of the comments on Youtube, Part 2, referenced Pertwee’s ability to set the tone without any words just a movement of his mouth and eyes. So true. In fact the comments for Part 1 were astonished for the most part, asking that this be officially ‘canon’ -then of course there was the usual youtube fuelled hostility (one ignores that easily enough).

    He looks marvellous! His eyes as he stares off into memory land are just filled with wisdom and understanding and as they touch palms, the white and blue regeneration energy eclipses them without it becoming sentimental shtick. Like the dead, they’re waves of light and energy. Light shining from a dead star.

    The score here is the closest to anything approaching new or old Who and is just perfect: a nice blend of tense and victorious as Pertwee emerges.

    Fan fluff?  I don’t know but Pertwee, gaunt and Dantesque, with a fold of white wavy hair looks more a Doctor here than any, past or present. He reaches that apex in a most distinguished manner. I’m reminded of Ford here:

    “Alas poor gentleman, He’d look not like the ruins of his youth,

    But like the ruins of those ruins” [The Broken Heart].

    Patroklos appears to Achilles in a dream. Overjoyed at seeing his companion, tries to throw his arms around this apparition but finds he can’t: “what we see is a projection, beamed to us from a great distance, light shining at us.”

    That’s what I’m reminded of when I watch this.

    Thank you again.

  3. Were you in Newcastle in 2001 ?

    from digging around on and in their old website -> http://wayback.archive.org/web/20020319201040/http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Dimension/7923/news.html

    Here are some excerpts (bold is my emphasis) from the summary provided for their video presentations & panel at the DIMENSIONS ON TYNE CONVENTION – 17th November 2001

    “. . .  we showed three video segments – the first being a 16-minute documentary. This page will show frame grabs from that documentary.  . . .  Some of them are grabs from Devious itself, whilst others are from behind the scenes, or outtakes, or from the Pertwee scene (2 only I’m afraid), and the Curse of Fatal Death Comic Relief footage.

    The second video segment was actual footage from Devious (at 21 minutes) whilst the third segment was the 8 minute regeneration scene featuring Jon Pertwee from our episode six.

    …”

    I live in hope to see the completed Devious one day,  . . . soon ?

  4. We all live to see the completed Devious.

    But….    Who knows?

    And no, back in 2001, I spent a lot of that year in a basement on the Mexico/Texas border with 15 pounds of Burmese heroin, two transsexual Brazilian prostitutes and General Custer’s gattling gun (sadly inoperable), trading precious Indian saphires for the worst burritos you ever heard of in your life.  All over a small misunderstanding involving the attempted overthrow of an unnamed, oil rich, Latin American government.  On the positive side, I learned a lot of portugese.  But I can never walk past a trampoline without shuddering.

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