The thing about Alain Corneau’s crime thrillers is, for all they take their time telling a story, they let you know what they’re really about straight away. Each of the three titles collected in this Radiance Films Blu-Ray set kicks off with a sequence or shot that immediately flags up […]
Graham Williamson
Senior Contributor
Doctor Who A-Z #64: The Time Monster (1972)
Doctor Who’s ninth season began with a story that anticipated Marvel’s X-Men and ends with this, a story that anticipates Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace. The dialogue about “women’s lib” between the Master’s unwitting lackeys Ingram and Hyde has the nose-bruising glibness of a classic Rick Dagless/Liz Wool interaction, and the first […]
Doctor Who A-Z #63: The Mutants (1972)
Everyone knows The Mutants is a bad story. Ever since it was being filmed, when Jon Pertwee first noticed the similarity between the opening scene and Monty Python‘s “It’s…” man, people have been making fun of it. In Doctor Who Magazine‘s Mighty 200 poll, The Time Monster was the only […]
Doctor Who A-Z #62: The Sea Devils (1972)
We’re exactly halfway through Jon Pertwee’s tenure as Doctor now. I’ve had plenty of opportunities to disagree with the consensus on this period of the show so far, and there’ll be even more of that in the second half of Pertwee’s run. Mostly I’ve disagreed in a way which favours […]
The Barnabáš Kos Case (1965) Triangle of Madness
Without doubt the greatest film ever made about a triangle player in a symphony orchestra, Second Run’s Blu-Ray release of The Barnabáš Kos Case sees them returning to the work of the Slovakian director Peter Solan. Previously, they’d released the other film the busy director made in 1965, Before Tonight […]
Doctor Who A-Z #61: The Curse of Peladon (1972)
Jon Pertwee-era Doctor Who looks and feels very different to William Hartnell-era Doctor Who, and yet behind the scenes there’s still a surprising amount of shared personnel. This serial, for instance, is written by Brian Hayles, who’s been working on the show since 1966’s The Celestial Toymaker. He’s had a […]
Play It Cool (1970): walking the fine line between melodrama and exploitation
The picaresque structure, in which a roguish but sympathetic hero moves through an episodic plot usually set in a criminal underworld, was used in early landmark novels like Don Quixote and Moll Flanders. It’s now used more in pornography than serious literature, but if that’s a fall from grace no-one […]
Doctor Who A-Z #60: Day of the Daleks (1972)
Steven Moffat once cited The Rescue as one of the most influential stories in Doctor Who‘s history, arguing that while we commemorate the debut of a new Doctor, companion or monster we rarely remember the stories which introduce new ideas, or a different type of story that can be told within this wide-open […]
Doctor Who A-Z #59: The Daemons (1971)
For the second time in as many years, Doctor Who closes a season by closing the book on a particular version of the show. And just like the last time, there isn’t much of a change in the cast and crew to explain the tonal shift. When Season Nine of […]
Doctor Who A-Z #58: Colony in Space (1971)
It’s strange that Colony in Space tends to be the forgotten soldier of Season Eight. It is, after all, the story in which the Third Doctor gets to travel to an alien planet for the first time, ending an Earth-based format which a considerable number of fans find hard to […]