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Doctor Who Wins Hugo Award Shock
'And the winner is...' said the lovely Jane Espenson, 'Doctor Who...' Sharp intake of breath from the audience. '"The Empty Child".' Huge applause. And suddenly the audience realises that there was a reason why the 'Empty Child' clip had got whoops and cheers when it was shown, and that the absolute favourite going into the awards, Battlestar Galactica, hadn't been what people on the ground had been voting for.
I'd been going to go up and collect for any of the guys that won, but had been told that Moffat had sent a note instead at the last minute, and that I was 'mentioned in it'. Said note was a typically witty story of when Moffat had first heard of the Hugo as a kid, about 'people with the names Harlan or Ellison or sometimes both' (Harlan having been up to give and take awards himself earlier). It ended with 'and give Paul a hug... he'll hate it.' Yeah, so you made the audience laugh across the Atlantic, in what I hear was your hungover Edinburgh TV Festival sleep, you bastard. And you'd also had the thought that going up to collect something one wants to win without actually having won it... might on the night have been kind of hard. Wit and depth. Which is why you won.
On the way out of the audiorium, and I'll talk about everything else and the whole world here and all the drama and the frocks, a handout is given, detailing, this being SF fandom, exactly how everyone did, in fine detail. And it turns out Doctor Who took all top three places, with Rob in second and me in third.
The Galactica writer, Anne Cofell Saunders, was there on the night also, and was absolutely charming. Her show and her episode are of the absolute highest calibre. She wished our show well, and I wished hers well on our part. Because I do love it, and thought we'd had no chance against such a fine piece of work.
But as it turned out, it was our, and particularly Moffat's, night.
I'd been going to go up and collect for any of the guys that won, but had been told that Moffat had sent a note instead at the last minute, and that I was 'mentioned in it'. Said note was a typically witty story of when Moffat had first heard of the Hugo as a kid, about 'people with the names Harlan or Ellison or sometimes both' (Harlan having been up to give and take awards himself earlier). It ended with 'and give Paul a hug... he'll hate it.' Yeah, so you made the audience laugh across the Atlantic, in what I hear was your hungover Edinburgh TV Festival sleep, you bastard. And you'd also had the thought that going up to collect something one wants to win without actually having won it... might on the night have been kind of hard. Wit and depth. Which is why you won.
On the way out of the audiorium, and I'll talk about everything else and the whole world here and all the drama and the frocks, a handout is given, detailing, this being SF fandom, exactly how everyone did, in fine detail. And it turns out Doctor Who took all top three places, with Rob in second and me in third.
The Galactica writer, Anne Cofell Saunders, was there on the night also, and was absolutely charming. Her show and her episode are of the absolute highest calibre. She wished our show well, and I wished hers well on our part. Because I do love it, and thought we'd had no chance against such a fine piece of work.
But as it turned out, it was our, and particularly Moffat's, night.
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And there was I convinced that having the pro-Who vote split across 3 stories would guarantee we wouldn't get it. Heh. =:o}
Well done all three of you.
What clips did they use to represent the DW episodes nominated, just out of interest?
Well done! I wish you coulda gotten it, but well done nonetheless!
Commiserations on not taking gold, but congratulations on being part of a clean sweep!
Pardon me while I pick up my jaw. and stop doing my happy dance (not easy when your jaw keeps bouncing off the carpet)
I was really convinced that BSG would get this.
Congrats to you all and everyone involved in the return of the Doctor
Guess Sci-Fi are glad they picked up on S2 now
Kev
Bloody well done all round, I think! OK, Father's Day didn't win. but bronze medal place, it's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick! And to have come ahead of Pegasus! :D
Whaddya reckon on "Girl in the Fireplace" for 2006? :D
Well done to the three of you! Fingers crossed for next year :)
Woohoo! DW's finally won a Hugo! Result-tastic! I still say "Father's Day" was better than "Dalek", mind you. But yes, well done on being voted better than BSG :)
An aquaintence of mine got a couple of pictures of you in your tux.
And my understanding is the Loser's party is the better one anyways.
And the world of Who fandom is feeling so bloody proud, and so bloody smug right now.
Well done.
There's still next year's Hugos, and the year after that.... and so on and so forth... ;)
Sorry to hear you didn't get the gong, Paul - but it's great to see a Brit SF show coming home with the rocket.
123 it's no bad - congrats to you all.
Lilian
Thanks everyone! The PR voting system means that the vote cannot be split. Indeed, three entries may have helped us according to some analysis I've read. The clips were: Rose in Captain Jack's beam; the Dalek in chains first appearing; Jackie thinking that Pete has fathered many Roses (which, yeah, I thought was a really weird choice). They have a combined winners and losers party these days, (because the winners always felt a bit lonely and isolated) and a lovely one it was too, hosted by Nippon 2007, the next Worldcon, with a gift sake box and (good) sake being served. Thanks for those photos, Michael. That's me with Lou Anders. And, contrary to photo grammar, Caroline isn't Ian McDonald's girlfriend now.
I just wanted to say that you were great at Worldcon. I went to three of your panels and enjoyed them all.
Good luck getting the Hugo trophy through airport security, and if you'd like an anime recommendation, check out Kamichu!
JUSTICE!!!!!
Many congrats to all three of you.
Hope you had a good time in the States, and that many more celebratory drinks are to come.
James.
Comiserations Paul but also a huge well done on getting third place, given the strength of the competition its still quite an achievement.
Keeping fingers crossed that your eps for Season Three get you that little bit further.
Liked the tux and in particular the bow tie that definitely looked like it was about to start spinning and pull you away rather sharply ;-)
Thanks very much, I enjoyed myself on my fifteen panels. As it turned out, the organisers mailed Steven the statues, because our luggage was mad enough as it was. And I'll check out that anime. Celebrations are indeed planned. And yes, the only good bit of bowtieness as far as I'm concerned is when you can wear it hanging round your collar at the end of the night.
Home again now and sleepy.
Huge congratulations to all three of you..especially to you Paul, for my favourite episode.
It broke my heart..I cried and cried. Abeautiful story.
Congrats on third. (A Who win is a win though right?!)
At Beatle Week here in Liverpool this week I was approached by a chum of mine with a message from her young neice. She wanted to know would her auntie's friend pass on a message to Mr Cornell to say that she really enjoyed Father's Day. So I have!
Aww! Thanks, you two.
Congrats.
You said something about the Battlestar Galactica writer Anne Cofell Saunders, and I just thought it was funny how there aren't that many female sci-fi writers. Although I dont watch that much sci-fi apart from Doctor Who so i wouldn't know that much. But is it mainly male writers who do sci-fi for TV?
Cheers,
Jack.
P.S. Well there's Helen Raynor!
Congratulations to the Dr. Who writers!
The situation is better in the USA, but I'd still say the majority of telefantasy over there is written by men. There are many women on the production side in Britain, and that's probably true over there as well, but in terms of freelancers... we need more women. And ta!
Hello Paul - congrats on nearly winning a Hugo, and frankly, having written an episode of a series that includes Moffat and Davies (why wasn't he nominated?) is clearly a stellar achievement - egos aside, I don't know if it really matters which episode won (although it was Father's Day that broke me down to weeping little pieces of gristle and bone - it's been my favourite so far - the only other episode to do that to me so far has been Love And Monsters). No real purpose to this post, except to say that I idolized your novels back in the old days, loved Father's Day, am very, very proud of what you, Russell, and the whole team have done, and look forward more keenly than ever to the next series of DW.
That's very kind of you. It's good to know we're still keeping the old NA audience happy too.
And who would have ever imagined Doctor Who could get one of the highest awards in the industry? That's right. I would.
I just could never imagine THOSE clips as being the ones they would use to show Doctor Who off...
Now let's just hope this becomes an annual event, and you get your shot next!
The choice of clips was a bit odd, but it would be churlish to complain, as the rest of the event was organised so well. I won't get my shot next year, of course, but I hope to be back! And ta!