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 Day 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.

Minisodes and extras
For the first watch-along, Steven Moffat penned a short introductory skit, Strax Saves the Day, which was released on Twitter. The home-produced video starred Dan Starkey as Strax, represented on screen with a stuffed toy of the character, and featured the voice of Neve McIntosh as Vastra.

For the second watch-along Russell T Davies penned a sequel audio story, Revenge of the Nestene, which was released onto YouTube and depicted the aftermath of the Nestene Consciousness's defeat at the hand of the Ninth Doctor. He also released a previously withheld prequel short story, Doctor Who and the Time War, which was released onto the Doctor Who website and depicted an alternate account to the Eighth Doctor's involvement in the Last Great Time War and the Ninth Doctor's origins. This was the first of a series of COVID-era releases on the Doctor Who website, which soon ceased directly tying in with tweetalongs, but were still ultimately part of the same broad phenomenon, with Paul Cornell's BBC website short story The Shadow Passes tying in directly with his contemporary Lockdown! webcast The Shadow in the Mirror.

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 and How The Monk Got His Habit, 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 Torchwood simulcasts with John Barrowman tweeting along and Billie-Adora ("Transgirlbillie") organised watchalongs of Class. Big Finish organised a livestream of The Chimes of Midnight (with the hashtag #PlumPudding) with Paul McGann tweeting along. The Doctor Who pages themselves organised a tweetalong of the then-latest episode The Timeless Children on the 23rd November (with the hashtag #DoctorWhoDay). The same DW-pages later organised another tweetalong of the then-latest special, New Year Special Resolution on the 21st December to celebrate the 57th anniversary of the Daleks (with the hashtags #Resolution and #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 theLockdown! event was leveraged to encourage Doctor Who fans to donate to the COVID-19 Film and TV Emergency Relief Fund. In addition, the webcast The Best of Days was rewritten late in production to make prominent reference not just to the coronavirus pandemic, but also to the Black Lives Matter movement.

Lockdown 1 Tweetalongs
Promotional posters for Lockdown 1 were made by Stuart Crouch.

Lockdown 2 Tweetalongs
Promotional posters for Lockdown 2 were made by Andrew-Mark Thompson.

Festive Tweetalongs
Promotional posters for the Festive Tweetalongs were made by Andrew-Mark Thompson.

Lockdown 3 Tweetalongs
Promotional posters for Lockdown 3 were made by Thiago Luz.

Cancelled
The tweetalong for World Enough and Time and The Doctor Falls was cancelled due to concern from the fanbase, particularly people of colour, that it was inappropriate to highlight a story featuring the shooting of Bill Potts, a black woman, so soon after the death of George Floyd and the subsequent uproar.

The tweetalong for The Unicorn and the Wasp was cancelled due to an influx fan feedback to Emily Cook after its announcement, expressing the feeling that it would be better to avoid having a massive celebration of any of Gareth Roberts' work given his removal from working on a Doctor Who short story anthology as a result of trans-misogynistic tweets he'd made and been unapologetic about.

Minisodes
Several new short stories and webcasts were released to tie into the watchalongs, or the COVID-19 pandemic in general, some of them on a dedicated Doctor Who: Lockdown YouTube channel.

The Fan Gallery
Starting with the tweetalong of The Husbands of River Song, the Doctor Who: Lockdown! website also included a section entitled "The Fan Gallery". It published stories and artwork submitted privately to, and reviewed by, the Lockdown! team by fans, in contrast to the extras of previous tweetalongs, which usually featured the contribution of one or more crewmember associated with the original story.

Short stories
The fan-fiction posted on the official Doctor Who: Lockdown! website were for the most part unlicensed. However, A Better World saw the start of Jacob Black and Aristide Twain's collaboration with the licensed use of the Auteur - who later appeared in Auteur's Abecedarium and Resurrection of the Author. LINDA United acted as a prequel to The Jack Who Stole Christmas, which was published in the charity anthology Twice Upon A Time Scope in December.

As of 1 May 2021, the stories are no longer accessible due to the expiry of the Lockdown website. Some of the authors have expressed their sadness, and their hope to either see the website return or to reissue their stories elsewhere.

Doctor Who: Blackout
Originally, the episodes World Enough and Time and The Doctor Falls were scheduled to be shown as the 'finale' of the watchalongs. However, due to events concerning the death of George Floyd, they were pulled due to their content being considered by the fanbase to be badly timed. In their place, fans used the hashtag #DoctorWhoBlackout while watching The Ghost Monument, The Haunting of Villa Diodati, Thin Ice, and ''Knock Knock. ''Although the event was not officially organised, it did receive some support from organisers of Lockdown.