Wait What Is This Story About Colin Baker In The Woods, You Can't Just Say That And Leave Us Hanging

Wait what is this story about colin baker in the woods, you can't just say that and leave us hanging

 oh god, okay… this is a fairly long story that colin baker relates in the dvd commentary for mark of the rani, i will be paraphrasing it but i’m pretty certain i remember all the major details because i was laughing SO hard the first time i heard it

first of all you have to know that mark of the rani was filmed on location in this particular village and the public woods surrounding it, and also that the weather was being rather inconsistent on this one day. it kept raining and then the rain would stop again, so every time the rain shifted, the whole filming crew would immediately jump up and run between two locations – for continuity reasons, because they were alternately filming one scene where it needed to be raining and one where it was sunny

so they’re doing this scene where the doctor is tied up and hanging from a pole like so:

it’s super uncomfortable to be actually hanging from a pole by one’s wrists and ankles for multiple takes of a scene, so the crew built some kind of contraption to make it easier on him… it was basically a metal frame-like thing that was hidden under his jacket and pants, supporting his back so that he wouldn’t actually be straining his wrists, i guess? at any rate, the downside of this was that this thing took a LONG time to set up, so it wasn’t possible to UNTIE him from the pole in between takes, so they just kind of. set him down on the ground. during the moments when they weren’t filming

anyways, in the middle of this situation with the intermittent weather, at some point it starts raining and the director calls for everyone to go to the other current filming location!! everyone is rushing about trying to get the cameras and props and people over there as quickly as possible (because you never know when the rain will change again) and in all of this hullaballoo they somehow manage to

forget colin baker on the ground

(actually he said that he sort of noticed them leaving him behind but was initially hesitant to say anything, thinking “surely i’m just missing something and they’ll come get me in a moment” and then by the time he fully realized he was left behind, they were too far out of earshot for him to say anything)

so he’s just like. well. i’ll just wait. and they’ll figure it out soon enough

he lies there tied to this pole for a good ten minutes or so until he hears someone coming down the path

but it is not the film crew, because these are PUBLIC WOODS they are filming in. it’s a random middle-aged couple walking their dog. and the dog comes running up to colin baker (who is a little ways off of the main path) and sniffing him and barking

and the couple just … look at him, tied to the pole on the ground… he said he could tell that they didn’t recognize him as being dr. who, so god knows what they thought about his COAT

he looks at them

there is a deeply awkward silence in which he doesn’t know what he could possibly say about the situation of him being TIED TO A POLE IN THE WOODS and they are clearly being TOO POLITE AND PROPER AND BRITISH-Y to bring it up

eventually one of them is like “nice weather today isn’t it” and he’s like “er yes quite” and they just keep going and leave him lying there on the ground tied to the pole

he just stays there for another twenty minutes or so until FINALLY he sees one of the camera crew running back to get him while yelling “COLIN OH MY GOD WE’RE SO SORRY”

…aaand that is the colin baker tied to a pole in the woods story, more or less as related by colin baker himself, aka my all time favorite thing that ever happened behind the scenes of doctor who!! ACTOR DVD COMMENTARIES ARE SO WORTH WATCHING, KIDS

i think the funniest thing about regeneration is that you can just like. hit a time lord hard enough that they can’t regenerate. you can just do that.

Lemme tell u guys a story

In my freshman year, my great grandma passed away. She never threw out or sold anything worth keeping if she could help it, having grown up in the Depression, so when she passed, my grandma suddenly inherited a lifetime’s worth of treasured items. She distributed most of them to her kids and grandkids, saved some sentimental items, and donated most of the clothing and trinkets to charity. I got back the stuffed leopard I’d given great-grandma in the hospital; the fur was still as soft as it’d been when I bought it. One of the biggest things she had to sort through was jewelry. For a year after my great-grandma died, my grandma was setting out organized rows of costume jewelry on basement tables and chivvying her granddaughters to take what they wanted.

And then, after all the choosing, she snuck me into her room while my cousins picked through wristwatches. On her bed were two small jewelry boxes: an old wooden one, and a cushioned one in white pleather.

“I brought you in here because if I gave these to your cousins, they’d sell it. I don’t want these sold. Do you understand?”

I understood.

This is the story of the biggest lie my grandma ever told her mom.

Great-grandma’s birthstone was garnet, and she loved the look of the stones, but could never justify paying for some. Her husband worked constantly, and so did she, and new clothes for the kids was more important than jewelry at the time. When my grandma was 16, she saved her first paychecks to buy her mom a garnet ring for Mother’s Day; that’s what was in the wooden box. The original receipt, handwritten, was crammed into the lid. Great-grandpa saw that ring and teared up; he’d always wanted to get his wife something nice like that, but hadn’t ever had enough money for it. Determined, he vowed to change that. He set aside money for years, slowly, hiding it away in a box in the attic, vowing to buy his wife something she could always wear with her ring.

Time passed, and inflation happened, and he slowly squirreled money away in the hopes that jewelry might get cheaper again sometime. Time passed again, and age had little mercy on him. He got older, typed up a note, and placed in in the box, describing what the money was for; he knew his time was near. Under no circumstances was the money to be spent on anything other than giving his wife a nice gift. The letter read, “One day, my dear Ruth, you’ll have garnet earrings to match that ring.” It’s what great-grandma had always mourned missing; she had such a nice ring, and no good earrings to go with it.

Well, men don’t live forever, and when great-grandpa passed away, my grandma cleaned out her mom’s attic as she prepared to move somewhere smaller. Going through boxes of polaroids and paper clips, she stumbled on the box of earrings money, note and all. She stashed it with her coat, and after that day of cleaning, went to the jeweler before her mom could try and spend the money on something too sensible. She came back with the white pleather box; sure enough, still nestled inside that box were two clip-on garnet earrings.

”Mom never got her ears pierced, you know. That’s why it took so long to find a good pair.”

Once she’d gotten the earrings, grandma presented them to her mom, along with the note. The paper was obviously old and warped by moisture, but it was legible. My great grandma cried happy tears and treasured those earrings more than any other jewelry; the last gift her husband could give her. Decades after the fact, I’d seen her wear them to Christmas parties and worry over them, checking that they stayed on her earlobes.

There was never any note from great-grandpa. Never any box. Never any earring money. My great-grandpa had spent his saved money keeping himself and his wife confortable throughout retirement. To set aside hundreds of dollars, even a bit at a time, for garnet earrings, was never a thought that crossed his mind. My grandma had seen her mom, exhausted, wracked with grief, and lied through her teeth about where she’d gotten the money for those earrings. She faked the note and everything, making sure her mom wouldn’t wonder where the money came from, and never winced at the pinch in her own pockets. And she never told a soul, not even my mom, until great-grandma was safely and thoroughly buried herself.

guess what

currently deciding if buying the Season 15 DVD set is worth it for the Behind the Sofa bits with Matthew Waterhouse and Katy Manning, two of my favorite Classic Who actors. It is $100, so this may be unwise. but the fixation yearns. it yearnssss

fourteen!! ✷

the angel staying over at my house asked for a nightlight in their room and i told them buddy, don't you produce your own light? what're you gonna do with more? and they said they wanted to see why people like it so much. and also that the nightlight i own is blue and they're been trying to understand color. anyways i think they've stared at it for an hour now