It’s been strange seeing the Doctor Who fandom, a fandom that was so divided and downhearted during the Chris Chibnall era and therefore ecstatic when Russell T Davies and Disney+ got involved, go back to the exact same mood after last year’s series finale. A rewatch of Empire of Death […]
Pop Culture
Doctor Who A-Z #69: The Green Death (1973)
Classic seasons of Doctor Who aren’t designed as a holistic experience like the new seasons are, but as far back as the Troughton era there’s been a sense that a season finale should offer something big. Quite what that bigness involves changes over time. The Troughton finales still mostly register […]
Doctor Who A-Z #68: Planet of the Daleks (1973)
Planet of the Daleks is the penultimate story – Invasion of the Dinosaurs is the last – to have material missing from the archives, specifically the colour negative of episode three. A colourised version has been made, but I watched a version where this one episode was in black and […]
Slice of Lynch: The Elephant Man (1980)
Programme: Music video: River of Dreams – Billy Joel, Short subject: Radar Men on the Moon – Chapter 8 The Enemy Planet, Cartoon: Looney Tunes – Feed the Kitty, Trailers: Heavy Metal (1981), Looker (1981), Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan Note: For this entry, I am including the program of […]
Doctor Who A-Z #67: Frontier in Space (1973)
I think I love the flour the most. The apparent hijacking of a human ship by alien mercenaries, the one that kick-starts this story and nearly causes a war between solar systems, isn’t a raid on a ship carrying space marines or photon torpedoes or anything like that. It’s an […]
Doctor Who A-Z #66: Carnival of Monsters (1973)
Carnival of Monsters seems to be the Third Doctor story that people who don’t like the Third Doctor’s era as a whole can get behind. There’s a very obvious reason for this, and like all very obvious reasons it isn’t quite right. Fans will tell you that its distinctive quality […]
Doctor Who A-Z #65: The Three Doctors (1972-3)
We catch our hero in the eye of the storm. After a career beginning in the 1960s, the new decade has been phenomenally good to him so far. A new incarnation has seen him soar to even greater heights of popularity, discarding some of the quainter fringes of his Sixties […]
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 […]