With new Doctor Who still over a year away from our television sets, fans have had to turn to other places to get our new Doctor Who fix to celebrate 40 years with our favorite Time Lord. The BBC Novels published a collaboration featuring the third Doctor and his UNIT friends by series legends Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks while Big Finish has offered the Unbound and villians serials, as well as their 50th release, the much anticipated Zagreus.

And while all of these are great fun and more than ample celebrations of what it is that we've come to love about Doctor Who in the past 40 or so years, they're not exactly what the traditionalist Whovian in me was yearning to celebrate 40 years of adventures through time and space. But leave it to the miracle of modern technology, the Internet to give us Doctor Who in a new way, but one that is so rich in the tradition of Doctor Who that it makes everything old new again. I'm referring to the BBC Interactive's on-line animated story, The Scream of the Shalka.

For six weeks, BBCI brought together fans from across the world to feel what it must have been like to experience a Who story during its heyday in the UK. We were given one segement of a story a week for six weeks, with each part getting better and buildling toward a stunning conclusion. We got some superb cliffhangers that left us stunned, eager for more and we got to expereince the wonder of a new adventure unfolding on our computer screens. Also, I don't know about anyone else but I quickly found that as the story unfolded each segment seemed shorter and shorter as I got more and more wrapped up in the story unfolding. If anything, it is this expereince that probably most sums up what it means to be a Who fan--the waiting and wondering what will happen next together. Honestly, it's been years since I've expereinced this wonder watching Doctor Who just because I've seen them all and it's certainly made me eager for this sense of anticipation and wonder to begin anew in 2005.

And if that were all this new Who did, it would be enough. But Shalka does a lot more and it does it well. The story, by NA fan favorite Paul Cornell, is pretty much a hybrid of the elements from the Claws of Axos and the Horns of Nimon. An alien race has come to Earth, seeing the damage we've done to our ecology. By enslaving humanity, they will cause the world's population to scream out, destroying the atmosphere and making our world unihabitable to us, but a paradise for the Shalka. Enter into this the ninth Doctor who is very aloof and alien. He wants only to come in and put a stop to the initial wave of the Shalka invasion, without really delving into their more insidious plan. But he is slowly drawn in the situation by a military presense and his interest in potential new companion, Allison. (And by interest, I don't mean like Grace had in the 8th Doctor in the TV movie...this time around, you get the feeling the Doctor is motivated by guilt or regret at knowing what might happen to Allison should he not intervene). And as if that weren't enough, the Master is travelling with the Doctor as a companion, but he can't leave the TARDIS.

If that seems like a lot to pack into six 15 minutes episodes, it is. But Cornell pulls it off with style. The first episode is a bit slow, but then again it's setting up a lot of things that will pay huge divideds later. Just like the first episode of Curse of Fenric, it takes a bit of putting the chess pieces into place before the rest of the story can begin knocking them all down.

Of course, a lot of interest in this story was the new Doctor, here played by Richard E. Grant. His name has been linked to the role of the new Doctor and this story certainly could be a great auditon piece. Cornell's script paints the new Doctor as a bit of hybrid between Pertwee and Colin Baker's Doctors with just enough McCoy thrown in for good measure. This Doctor is sarcastic, passionate and alien all in the same breath. Grant swtiches from serious to sarcastic at the drop of a hat and always makes the character believable. I was genuinely interested to see more of this new Doctor--and whether or not he continues to exist as an alternate universe Doctor, I guess we'll have to wait and see.

The rest of the cast is quite good as well, with special recognition going to Derek Jacobi as the Master. Universally, the acting is quite good and very consistent over the course of the six episodes.

But is Shalka perfect? I have to say, unfortunately it's not. While it's a treat to see the story get animated, it still feels like a Big Finish radio play with some really great animation thrown in as an extra kicker. There are a couple of points that seem to be written for the audio medium more than the visual and that's a shame really. But I will give the animation this--it does look superb and I am intrigued to see what will come of it when the story sees the light of day on DVD (which I've heard rumored will come out sometime in 2004).

Also, (and you can't count this as too big a criticism I guess, but I include it anyway) the story leaves far too many intriguing plot threads to be just a one-shot. Why is the Doctor so bitter? Why does he want to be alone? And how did the Master come to travel with him in the form that he does? Also, why the Doctor's special interest in Alison? All of these are intriguing and I wonder if Cornell might not be persauded to delve more into these--if not in another web cast than a series of novels. I've read that Shalka is to be novelized in Febrauary and I can't wait to get it, just to see if it expands on just some of the issues that are raised here.

But what it all comes down to is that Scream of the Shalka is a fun, entertaining Who story that combines the wonders of modern technology with the sensibilities that made Doctor Who great for these 40 years. Honestly, outside of a new serial or two on television, I can't think of a better way to celebrate the 40th annviersary of the good Doctor than this highly enjoyable story. I guess the biggest indicator of how much I enjoyed is that now, six weeks later I find myself wondering--well, what am I going to look forward to each week now without a new segment of Who to keep me going? I have a feeling that in between my Who videos, I may sneak in another viewing or two of Scream of the Shalka. After all, it's one Doctor Who story I havent' seen 20 or 30 times...yet.