Doctor Who: Lockdown!

***Doctor Who: Lockdown!*** (also styled ***Doctor Who: LOCKDOWN!***, and originally titled ***Who at Home***) was a project founded by Emily Cook from *Doctor Who Magazine* who proposed the idea to *Doctor Who* fans as a simulcast watch-along of the show's 50th Anniversary, *The Fall of the Doctor*, worldwide as a way to pass the time in self-isolation due to worldwide outbreak of COVID-19. The story was shown on 21 March 2020. She added that if the concept gained enough popularity, she would arrange more watch-alongs. which did indeed come to pass.

The event even developed its own website.

## Nature

### Minisodes and extras

For the first watch-along, Paul Cornell penned a short introductory skit, *Romana in Lockdown*, which was released on Twitter. The home-produced video starred Annabel Scholey as Romana, represented on screen with an action figure of the character.

For the second watch-along Steven Moffat penned a sequel audio story, *What Happened to Sally?*, which was released onto YouTube and depicted the fate of Sally Ryder at the end of *The Time of the Daleks*.

Such releases continued with each new watchalong, bringing together established DWU writers, actors and/or characters in a variety of new original content, released alongside each instalment of this event. DWM 554 dubbed the impromptu series "the unexpected ‘Lockdown Season’ of Doctor Who in 2020" in an article penned by Steve O'Brien — although the article concerned itself only with the webcast releases, failing to document *Spoof Scenes*, it did include the non-narrative webcast *Lockdown Long Song | Choir-Only Version*.

After a *Doctor Who: Lockdown!* website was created in late 2020, it introduced a new classification, separating video *Minisodes*, video *Singalongs*, and prose *Extras*. Soon after the website's launch, a page entitled *Fan Content* was also added. This section of the website encouraged viewers to create their own works inspired by the subject of the current tweetalong, as well as posting them on Twitter within the relevant hashtag. A selection of these fan-generated stories and pieces would then get an official release on the website in the *Fan Content* section.

As of 1 May 2021, the majority of the *Fan Content* shared as part of the tweetalongs is no longer accessible due to the expiry of the Lockdown website. Only the Fan Films are currently available, due to their hosting on YouTube rather than the website itself.

### The Tweetalong phenomenon

"*Doctor Who: Lockdown!*" was originally conceived of by Emily Cook as an "umbrella term for online Tweetalongs, where fans could revisit old episodes together, alongside some of the people who wrote, made and starred in them". (REF: *The Lockdown Season*)

Indeed, many tweetalongs with no official connection to the BBC or other right-holders were organised, beginning as a *The Five Doctors* watchalong (with the hashtag #GameofRassilon) organised by Ellie Collins ("TardisMonkey") was promoted by Emily Cook but was not directly part of the *Lockdown!* line, and also saw a small scene with Paul Jerricho as the Castellan being filmed and released for the event. Other watchalongs promoted by Emily Cook included *The Three Doctors*, organised by Ellie Collins (which had two short spoofs starring Jon Culshaw and Katy Manning), and *The War Games*, organised by Pip Madeley.

Radio Times organised *The Pyramid* simulcasts with Lisa Bowerman tweeting along. The *Doctor Who* pages themselves organised a tweetalong of the then-latest episode *The Saviour of Gallifrey* on the 23rd November (with the hashtag #DoctorWhoDay). The same *DW*-pages later organised another tweetalong of *The Dalek Occupation of Winter* on the 21st December to celebrate the 57th anniversary of the Daleks (with the hashtag #DalekDay). On the 27th February, 2021, the organisation known as “Friends of Ace” held a tweetalong of *Remembrance of the Daleks* with Sophie Aldred as a way of remembering those who had passed, using the hashtag #WhoAreYouCallingSmall.

The tweetalongs were not the only occasion for the release of new webcast *Doctor Who* content, with Russell T Davies or even the BBC itself releasing new webcasts not connected with a particular watchalong in an effort to spread awareness of various facets of the crisis.

### Fundraising and awareness

*Doctor Who: Lockdown!* minisodes and extras were usually released for free on various online platforms such as YouTube, the official *Doctor Who* YouTube channel, and the official *Doctor Who: Lockdown* YouTube channel. As such, they did not constitute charity publications in the conventional sense. However, much like *Doctor Who* Comic Relief or Children in Need specials, one dimension to their existence was to raise awareness of a charitable cause: the publicity around the*Lockdown!* event was leveraged to encourage *Doctor Who* fans to donate to the *COVID-19 Film and TV Emergency Relief Fund*.

## Tweetalongs

### Festive Tweetalongs

Sarah Dollard
 21
 22
 23
Danny Horn
Laurence Belcher
Steven Moffat
 24