Doctor Who

An Adventure in Black and White – A Season One Introduction

The story so far… ‘It all started out as a mild curiosity in the junkyard, and now it’s turned out to be quite a great spirit of adventure’ Let us take a trip back in time to 17:15 on Saturday 23rd November 1963. To a very different Britain, just 18 years after the end of…

The Two Doctors by Robert Holmes (1985)

Meat is Murder – an introduction to The Two Doctors In 1983 Robert Holmes was commissioned to write the Doctor Who 20th Anniversary special – The Six Doctors. He came up with three potential outlines in a discussion document, but the most developed idea was that the Cybermen were looking to extract the biological component…

Attack of the Cybermen by Eric Saward (1985)

It is the 50th anniversary year. BBC Worldwide brings out a rather brilliant set of mugs – each with a montage of images from a different Doctor and their first and last words in the role. At the moment I’m having a cup of tea out Jon. It is a simple pleasure, a glimpse of…

Resurrection of the Daleks by Eric Saward (1984)

‘I’ll say one thing for you, Eric. Your stories are totally predictable. You’re like a deranged child, all this killing, revenge and destruction The theory goes like this – Earthshock changed everything. It was all returning monsters and continuity after that. Then Resurrection changed everything it was all shoot-em-ups and huge death counts after that.…

The TV Movie by Mathew Jacobs (1996)

‘It was on the planet Skaro that my old enemy the Master was finally put on trial. They say he listened calmly as his list of evil was read and sentence passed. Then he made his last, and I thought somewhat curious, request. He demanded that I, the Doctor, a rival Time Lord, should take…

Heaven Sent by Steven Moffat (2015)

There are two events in everybody’s life that nobody remembers. Two moments experienced by every living thing, yet no one remembers anything about them. Nobody remembers being born and nobody remembers dying. As you come into this world, something else is also born. You begin your life, and it begins a journey towards you. It…

Our Friend in the North – the Ninth Doctor

Last month was the 16th anniversary of ‘Rose’, of the show returning to TV (26th March 2005). A time before the iPhone or iPad, before streaming services or smart TV’s. When broadband and wifi were just starting to be widespread and the sound of modems firing up could still be heard in some quarters. Way…

Earthshock by Eric Saward (1982)

Sentinel – Eric Saward and the shock of the new Firstly an explanation. I wasn’t sure how to approach Earthshock, I am not entirely sure what else remains to be said about it – some people like it, some don’t, quite a few people don’t like what happened after it’s ‘success’. I could be wrong…

Circular Time: Winter by Paul Cornell and Mike Maddox (2007)

‘Thank you, all of you. Goodbye.’ As a coda to the Fifth Doctor’s time, we have a strange, but in the end rather beautiful little tale where Winter comes to the Fifth Doctor. The play starts with Doctor living the life of a rural farmer, with his wife Anima and children Tegan and Adric. It…

Snakedance by Christopher Bailey (1983)

‘Where the winds of restlessness blow. Where the fires of greed burn. Where hatred chills the blood. Here, in the depths of the human heart. Here is the Mara.’ So, fresh from a bruising experience where writer Chris Bailey feels that he has seen his story reduced to ‘a cheap spectacle, with poor quality, tawdry…

Kinda by Christopher Bailey (1982)

The Dark Places of the Inside – an introduction to Kinda ‘You will agree to be me, this side of madness or the other’ In the October 1982 issue of Doctor Who Monthly (issue 69), ‘Kinda’, the left-field Buddhist parable of forest worlds, empire and the dark places of the inside, came bottom of the…

Image of the Fendahl by Chris Boucher (1977)

Hungry. It were hungry for my soul. There is something really rather wonderful about ‘Image of the Fendahl’, a sense of perverseness about its inception that really appeals to me. This arises from the fact that when faced with a direct order to tone down the horror and violence in the show, Robert Holmes instead…

Season 7 – A change of direction

One of the things that becomes apparent when watching season 7 after the black and white years, is just how good the direction is. It is brilliant by classic ‘Doctor Who’ standards – the show has a real sense of pace and urgency, of dramatic tension, a mix of interesting shots and with great action…

Spray of Death – Robert Holmes and the writeness of ‘wrong’

Sylvia, will you check Mister McDermott’s entitlement on termination of employment, please? There is a shift that happens in the writing of Robert Holmes which starts with ‘Spearhead from Space’, but becomes really apparent in ‘Terror of the Autons’ – a mining of horrific, macabre concepts and dark set piece moments, but one that is…

I come to praise Terry Nation, not to bury him…

I’ve heard it said that ‘Terry Nation was a lazy, hack writer who re-cycled the same ideas, a stale set of clichés.’. Fandom these days seems determined to denigrate his role in the development of the show and his capabilities as a writer. All of which I think is a stale, clichéd and lazy piece…

Planet of the Daleks by Terry Nation (1973)

Somewhere on this planet there are ten thousand Daleks! It is 1973, it is the 10th anniversary of ‘Doctor Who’. It is also the 10th anniversary of the creatures that gave ‘Doctor Who’ it’s longevity. Oh and the writer who pretty much defined what ‘Doctor Who’ would become. So, it is only fitting that the…

Doctor Who and the Silurians by Malcolm Hulke (1970)

Reptilian. Biped. A completely alien species. Liz, these creatures aren’t just animals. They’re an alien life form, as intelligent as we are. Look, Doctor, I’m not going down there to start a war, but I must know what’s going on. So, with the science out of the way, what of the story? Really, ‘The Silurians’…

Cave art and Continental Drift – The Science of ‘The Silurians’

‘This is the world as it was before the great continental drift, two hundred million years ago. And these notes, well, they’re calculations on the age of the earth, with particular reference to the Silurian era.’ Let’s get this out of the way, the geological and evolutionary timeline of ‘The Silurians’ doesn’t really work at…

A Series 11 and 12 Retrospective

Now that a bit of time has passed, I thought I’d attempt an assessment, good and bad of the last two series of the show. It is just my personal view, it doesn’t claim to be objective, but I have at least tried to provide some balance. It is rather warily and wearily that I…

Tenth Planet by Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis (1966)

‘We are equipped to survive. We are only interested in survival. Anything else is of no importance. Your deaths will not affect us.’ Once upon a time… Let’s travel back to a time when there was only ‘once’ and ‘twice’ was a long way off in the future. When this story only existed as a…

The Stuff of Nightmares – Doctor Who and the Monsters

I’ve been pondering a question while writing my review of ‘Spare Parts’ – one of a series of reviews I’m about to write about the Cybermen – what is it that makes monsters work? The more I thought about it, the more complicated the question became. Not least because monsters prey on our fears and…

The Tides of Time by Steve Parkhouse/Dave Gibbons (1981)

As we move into Spring and into the 1980’s proper, I though it was time to brighten up this gloomy old thread, throw open the windows and let some light in. And so now in glorious Technicolor – Peter Davison’s debut in the Tides of Time. So, some scene setting, it is February 1981 and…

The Underwater Menace by Geoffrey Orme (1967)

You know I could have you torn to bits by my guards, yes?Yes.I could feed you to my pet octopus, yes?Yes.Well you have sense of humour. I too have sense of humour. I need men like you. You come with me, yes?I come with you. You’re not turning me into a fish! It is 1982…

Do you believe in Magic?

For those with some arcane knowledge of 60’s West Coast pop, so sang John Sebastian of the Lovin’ Spoonful. ‘Doctor Who’ supposedly has an ‘indefinable magic’, but magic in the programme itself? Not for me. We all have our own pet hates and bugbears – this is one of mine. Inspired by the recent DWM…

Flatline by Jamie Mathieson (2014)

You are monsters. That is the role you seem determined to play. So, it seems I must play mine. I came into the re-watch of this story with a slight misconception. I had always assumed that the pitch went like this. What if figures from Banksy’s street art came to life and started killing people…

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland -a tribute to Deborah Watling

The following article was written in July 2017 just after I heard the news that Deborah Watling had died. This was my tribute to her. I am going to talk about a few specific scenes from 1960’s Doctor Who. It is to remember Deborah Watling and the companion she played – Victoria Waterfield. I have…

Mummy on the Orient Express by Jamie Mathieson (2014)

There were many trains to take the name Orient Express, but only one in space. Completely faithful recreation of the original Orient Express. Except slightly bigger. And in space. Oh, and the rails are actually hyperspace ribbons. But in every other respect, identical. Painstaking attention to detail. A mini-break for two… There’s a body and…

Listen by Steven Moffat (2014)

Question. Why do we talk out loud when we know we’re alone? Conjecture. Because we know we’re not It could be with us every second and we would never know. How would you detect it, even sense it, except in those moments when, for no clear reason you choose to speak aloud? What would such…

Father’s Day by Paul Cornell (2005)

Peter Alan Tyler my dad. The most wonderful man in the world. Born 15th September 1954. It is 2005, ‘Doctor Who has been off screen, barring the 1996 TV Movie and a few repeats for 15 years. A generation had grown up without knowing what a TARDIS or Daleks were and the British TV schedules…

The Next Doctor by Russell T Davies (2008)

I’m the Doctor. Simply, the Doctor. The one, the only and the best. If you could stand back, sir. This is a job for a Time Lord. ‘The Next Doctor’ – the one with the rubbish, shaggy Cyber Shades and that nonsensical giant Cyberman at the end, isn’t it? Well, there is a lot more…

Never cruel or cowardly

A tribute to Terrance Dicks (first posted in the aftermath of his death in 2019) When I first met Terrance Dicks at a convention in the early 80’s, I was still a child really and I was meeting the man who had written the first book I ever bought. My first real encounter with him…

Doctor Who and The Web of Fear by Terrance Dicks Target Novelisation (1976)

‘Forty years the Yeti had been quiet – Collector’s item in a museum. Then without warning it awoke – and savagely murdered. At about the same time patches of mist began to appear in Central London. People who lingered anytime in the mist were found dead, their faces smothered in cobwebs. The cobweb seeped down,…

The Five Doctors (Target Novelisation) by Terrance Dicks (1983)

Ahead of time… It is Saturday November 19th 1983. “Doctor Who’ isn’t on TV, it isn’t the 20th anniversary yet, Longleat has long been and gone, all should be quiet. So, why is a 14 year old me standing excited beyond belief in a bookshop in Liverpool? To answer that question, I’ll ask you a…

Shada by Douglas Adams (every year!)

The following review was written in Cambridge – in May, but not May week- unfortunately Northern Rail were as confused as the TARDIS – faced with a new timetable boasting more trains, they panicked and decided to cancel most of their existing trains and in fact they now don’t seem to realise that they are…

Douglas Adams and the fundamental interconnectedness of all things

‘I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.’ ‘Hundreds of people who’ve never written before send in ‘Dr. Who’ scripts. They may have good ideas, but what they fail to realise is that writing for TV is incredibly complicated. They have no idea how difficult it is and what…

Deadline by Rob Shearman (2003)

‘I so much wanted to be a great writer, Philip – an artist, a genius. It’s what geniuses do. Wagner, Picasso, Dickens, had affairs, treated their wives, their children like ¤¤¤¤. They had the right. I wanted to be like them, rise above the right and wrong. Only the art mattered. But the thing is,…

The Dying Days by Lance Parkin (1997)

‘Today, after over twenty years, the human race returns to Mars. This would be a cause for celebration regardless of which nation had got there. But it isn’t, I am sure, jingoism to suggest that we are all particularly glad that it is the United Kingdom that got there first.’ – applause – ‘Twenty years…

Damaged Goods By Russell T Davies (1996)

‘Bev lay awake, hoping that Father Christmas would come, but the Tall Man came instead. She could hear his voice in the front room, but her mother’s crying drowned his actual words. Mum had been upset all day, ever since she came home. Her mother had different sorts of tears – mostly anger, like when…

Lungbarrow by Marc Platt (1997)

‘… and Rassilon, in great anger, banished the Other from Gallifrey that he might never return to the world.Then there was great rejoicing through the Citadel.But the Other, as he fled, stole away the Hand of Omega and departed the world forever.’ ‘The little figure had slowed and finally stopped a few feet from the…

Human Nature by Paul Cornell (1994)

Long ago, and far away, in the reign of Queen Victoria, there lived a silver-haired old man, who had a very good idea. He had thought of a shelter for policemen, with a telephone, so that anybody who was in trouble could call for help. And that was clever; because nobody knew what a telephone…

The Left-handed Hummingbird by Kate Orman (1993)

‘And deep inside him, something Blue was itching, something Blue was wrapping itself around him like a shroud. It was possible, even probable, that he was not aware of it. But the Blue was there, an unnatural colour, a spreading stain in the soft greyness of his brain. ‘ What do the deaths of John…

Love and War by Paul Cornell (1992)

‘So, he called it Heaven in Common Tongue, which meant that the translation fitted with whatever your own particular vision of bliss was. The High Command hadn’t liked that much. They hadn’t liked it either when Hall, once the Dragon Wars had ended and the two species were united against the Daleks, walked into the…

Nightshade by Mark Gatiss (1992)

Ah, nostalgia. So seductive. So dangerous. And so odd to be feeling it for some of my own work. Nightshade, now looking like the brittle-paged Tenth Planet I had as a kid.What surprises me now, re-reading the book after so many years is how SERIOUS it is. Grim, in fact. But you have to remember…

Adventures too broad and too deep – Doctor Who in the 1990’s

So by 1989, ‘Doctor Who’ had died a slow death, more by a 1000 cuts and neglect from those in power than anything else. Those making the show had done their best to come up with original, distinctive stories in the face of indifference and neglect from those above. It couldn’t keep up though, despite…

Paradise Towers by Stephen Wyatt (1987)

‘A town is full of buildings – some tall, some short, some wide, some narrow. The buildings are flats and houses and factories and shops … do you live in a town?’ ‘Mary, Mungo and Midge live in a tall block of flats – right at the top, in the flat with the flowers growing…

Under the Lake/Before the Flood by Toby Whithouse (2015)

‘Yes, well, well, there was no such thing as, as socks or smartphones and badgers until there suddenly were. Besides, what else could they be? They’re not holograms, they’re not Flesh Avatars, they’re not Autons, they’re not digital copies bouncing around the Nethersphere. No, these people are literally, actually, dead. Wow. This is, it’s amazing!…

The Armageddon Factor by Bob Baker and Dave Martin (1978)

We have the power to do anything we like. Absolute power over every particle in the universe. Everything that has ever existed or ever will exist. As from this moment are you listening to me, Romana? My will to finish this review waned by the episode, so forgive this lacklustre half-hearted attempt – in some…

The Power of Kroll by Robert Holmes (1978)

It was a world of water.Lagoons the size of seas covered most of its surface, so that the swampy, low-lying land masses were in constant danger of flooding. Water streamed from perpetually overcast grey skies, in rain showers which ranged from the mildest drizzles to torrential downpours. Even when it wasn’t raining, water seemed to…

The Androids of Tara by David Fisher (1978)

Gone Fishin’ ROMANA: Where are you going?DOCTOR: Fishing.ROMANA: Fishing? What’s fishing?DOCTOR: Fishing? It’s an art, worthy of the knowledge and practise of a wise man. Isaak WaltonROMANA: Look, we haven’t got time for you to practise anything. We’ve got to find the fourth segment.DOCTOR: You find it. I’m taking the day off. These days I…

Stones of Blood by David Fisher (1978)

‘From Ogros, their home planet. That’s in Tau Ceti. Repulsive place covered in great swamps full of amino acids, primitive proteins which they feed on by absorption. Hence their need of globulin. Which is the nearest equivalent on Earth, hence the blood sacrificed on the stones.’ If ever a ‘Doctor Who’ story could be given…

The Pirate Planet by Douglas Adams (1978)

‘Excuse me, I’m looking for a planet called Calufrax. It’s about fourteen thousand kilometres across, it’s an oblate spheroid and it’s covered in ice. Excuse me, excuse me. Has anybody seen a planet called Calufrax? Funny, nobody’s seen it.’ ‘What are you doing it for, Captain? It doesn’t make sense and you know it. I…

Ribos Operation by Robert Holmes (1978)

You wouldn’t understand. For years, I was jeered and derided. I began to doubt even myself. Then you came along, and you told me I was right. Just to know that for certain, Unstoffe, well, is worth a life, eh? Of all the episodes to miss back in the 1970’s, ‘Ribos Operation’ episode one was…

Spearhead from Space by Robert Holmes (1970)

The Shock of the new? Change and Spearhead from Space It is easy to assume that ‘Spearhead from Space’ came as a huge shock to existing viewers of the show in January 1970. It also fits perfectly into a narrative when writing about ‘Doctor Who’ in a marathon context, since the change of Doctor, format…

The Christmas Invasion by Russell T Davies (2005)

Did you miss me? So, this one is a bit of a trip down memory lane, as ‘The Christmas Invasion’ is the start, ‘Feast of Steven’ aside, of a retrofitted Christmas tradition. One that feels so right, that you almost believe it has been going for 55 years. One which, to me at least, makes…

Point of Entry by Marc Platt (storyline Barbara Clegg) (2010)

Not marching now in fields of Trasimene,Where Mars did mate the Carthaginians;Nor sporting in the dalliance of love,In courts of kings where state is overturned’d;Nor in the pomp of proud audacious deeds,Intends our Muse to vaunt his heavenly verse:Only this, gentlemen, we must performThe form of Faustus’ fortunes, good or bad. So starts Point of…

The Ultimate Foe by Robert Holmes/Eric Saward/Pip and Jane Baker! (1986)

You are elevating futility to a high art. There is nothing you can do to prevent the catharsis of spurious morality Eric has been coerced back to finish the last two scripts of the season. He had already started on episode 13 before he resigned. Sadly, just before the transmission of ‘Mysterious Planet’ Robert Holmes…

Terror of the Vervoids by Pip and Jane Baker (1986)

My submission concerns a crisis which threatens the lives not only of a group of people confined together with no means of escape, but would, if unresolved, threaten every mortal being on the planet Earth. What are you, a comedian? No, more a sort of clown, actually. Some context… So, while the next story is…

Mindwarp by Philip Martin (1986)

‘How pathetic and juvenile are your attempts at humour.’ – The Valeyard ‘Thanks for pointing that out’ – Me So after ‘Mysterious Planet’, most opinion seems to have it that the next story ‘Mindwarp’ is the highlight of this season, at least from the reviews I’ve seen. The DWM polls count Trial as one story…

The Mysterious Planet by Robert Holmes (1986)

‘Why do I have to sit here watching Peri getting upset, while two unsavoury adventurers bully a bunch of natives’ So ‘Doctor Who’ has been away for a year and a half. When we left it, the TARDIS was about to leave Necros after a pretty decent story – it was Blackpool bound. We re-join…

Twice upon a Time by Steven Moffat (2017)

‘Oh, I don’t think so. No. Dear me, no. You may be a Doctor, but I am the Doctor. The original, you might say.’ Twice upon a time, is an episode that not one, but two showrunners didn’t really want to make. ‘World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls’ is so comprehensive an ending for the…

The Dominators by Norman Ashby (1968)

We don’t unfortunately get to choose our ‘birth story’ – it is chance – it really wasn’t in any way considered or planned during your conception. Not even fans do that surely? Children are growing up called Nyssa or Leela or Rose or Martha – but surely nobody thought in 2013 if we work back…

The Guardian of the Solar System by Simon Guerrier (2010)

So, to the last of the ‘Sara Kingdom’ trilogy. In the moving prologue, Robert’s 21-year old daughter, who Sara helped save, leaves to see the world, never to return, but Robert stays in the house – shouldering the burden that Sara has carried for a thousands years. It is made explicitly clear that the impression…

The Drowned World by Simon Guerrier (2009)

This is the second in the trilogy and picks up with Robert transcribing his thoughts on the image of Sara Kingdom and the ghost or rather echo of her in the house at Ely. We have a confirmation that human society is now less advanced than 1000 years previously when the house was first built,…

Home Truths by Simon Guerrier (2008)

This is the first story in a trilogy about Sara Kingdom, written by Simon Guerrier and is part of the Big Finish Companion Chronicles range. The premise is really rather ingenious, finding a way to give use more stories of Sara Kingdom and the excellent Jean Marsh, but creating in the process something really rather…

Downtime By Marc Platt (1995)

‘It seemed an awfully long time since dinner. Victoria was sure it would soon be time for tea and Mr Do-do-dodgson still had not taken any photographs. She clutched her doll tightly and tried very hard not to move, but she was very, very bored. The sun was in her eyes and the little stone…

Web of Fear by Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln (1968)

‘The huge, furry monster reared up, as if to strike. Well over seven feet tall, its immensely broad body made it seem squat and lumpy. It had the huge hands of a gorilla, the savage yellow fangs and fierce red eyes of a grizzly bear.’ ‘In the empty hall, the Yeti stood motionless, surrounded by…

Being Human – The Cybermen, body horror and The Turing Test

Do you ever suddenly realise that you don’t actually know the meaning of a word that you’ve blithely used most of your life? That happened to me recently, when I was reading an article on the Cybermen in ‘The Scientific Secrets of Doctor Who’ (by Simon Guerrier and Dr Marek Kukula), in which they talk…

From Tibet to Tooting Bec – An introduction to the Yeti

A single blow from the giant, hairy paw smashes the explorer to the ground. Terrified, he flees from the monster’s glowing eyes and savage fangs… Why are the peaceful Yeti now spreading death and destruction? And what is the secret behind the glowing cave on the mountain? When DOCTOR WHO discovers that a long-dead friend…

The Abominable Snowmen by Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln (1967)

‘Gentlemen, I assure you—the body of evidence that has accumulated over the years is undeniable. The Abominable Snowman does exist.’ ‘Oh, Intelligence. You promised to release me, yet still I feel your grasp upon this frail body. Why? What is happening? This was not your plan. But if you continue to expand? I have brought…

Kill the Moon by Peter Harness (2014)

‘Look at the size of it. It’s the size of a badger.’ The moon’s an egg. Has it, er, has it always been an egg? Oh, my gosh. It laid a new egg. I could just leave the review there. Feel free to stop at this point. Let me set out my stall on this…

Absent Friends by John Dorney (2016)

Absent Friends, written by John Dorney is an 8th Doctor story, the first of the 3rd Doom Coalition box set. At the heart of this wonderful story is death and bereavement, how it affects us and how we come to terms with it or fail to over time. It is a narrative structure that only really…

Survival by Rona Munro (1989)

‘The chase. To hunt in the morning and live till evening. Run out of the light, and slip into the dark. Smell the blood on the wind. Hear your blood in your ears. Die at last, with your enemy’s blood in your mouth. With your enemy’s blood in your mouth’ “This planet’s alive. The animals…