Welcome to my blog – A Journal of Impossible Things. The title is taken from one of my favourite Doctor Who stories – Human Nature by Paul Cornell. It is the journal of the teacher, John Smith and is richly illustrated with drawings and stories chronicling the adventures of a time travelling hero called ‘The Doctor’ – of a life he never quite lived, but half remembers:
DOCTOR: I have written down some of these dreams in the form of fiction. Not that it would be of any interest.
JOAN: I’d be very interested.
DOCTOR: Well, I’ve never actually shown it to anyone before.
JOAN: A Journal of Impossible Things! Just look at these creatures! Such imagination!
DOCTOR: It’s become quite a hobby...
Later, the story of the lives of John Smith and Joan Redfern are told by her great granddaughter Verity Newman, in a book of the same name. The Doctor visits her at a book signing when he knows he is dying in ‘The End of Time‘:
VERITY: No, it’s not just a story, no. Every word of it’s true. I found my great grandmother’s diary in the loft, and she was a nurse in 1913, and she fell in love with this man called John Smith. Except he was a visitor from another world. She fell in love with a man from the stars. And she wrote it all down. And who’s it for?
DOCTOR: The Doctor.
VERITY: To the Doctor. Funny, that’s the name he used.
DOCTOR: Was she happy in the end?
VERITY: Yes. Yes, she was. Were you?
So what is the blog about? Well, it is a collection of my reviews and articles taken from posts originally made over a number of years on the Gallifrey Base forum in a series of themed threads. The reviews mostly cover TV ‘Doctor Who’ stories – old and new, but also some of the books, Big Finish audios and occasionally comic strips. They are collected, revised and organised here. In addition, I also occasionally write overview pieces or articles about a specific aspect of the show, spanning more than a single story, again these are collected here.
More than that though, I wanted to expand the areas that I typically cover, to include the other archive TV that I love – Quatermass and the works of Nigel Kneale, The Prisoner, The Avengers, Doomwatch, Survivors and others. We’ll see where it takes us!
I hope you find something to enjoy! If you do leave a comment.
A Journal of Impossible Things 