Time-Flight is one of those Doctor Who stories that people tend to criticise just by saying what happens in it, as though you’ll never come up with a dismissal of it more damning than “this is the one where they thought they could successfully film Concorde crash-landing on prehistoric Earth”. And that’s completely […]
Pop Culture
Doctor Who A-Z #121: Earthshock (1982)
Back in the Usenet days of Doctor Who fandom, people used to talk about “frock” versus “gun” episodes of Doctor Who. Some people liked the show for its “frock” elements (camp humour, weird juxtapositions, eccentric characters), some for its “gun” elements (military action, recurring monsters, violent deaths). I was never sure how seriously […]
Doctor Who A-Z #120: Black Orchid (1982)
The decision to spend two episodes of Peter Davison’s debut season trying to revive the “pure historical” – a subgenre of Doctor Who where the Doctor and the TARDIS are the only science-fictional elements, which hasn’t been attempted since Patrick Troughton’s sophomore story – is usually regarded as a baffling […]
Doctor Who A-Z #119: The Visitation (1982)
So here we are, the first serial to bear a screenwriting credit for Eric Saward. To say his rise was meteoric would be an understatement; not yet forty and without a Doctor Who story to his name, he’s already the script editor at this point. The happiest thing to note […]
Doctor Who A-Z #118: Kinda (1982)
Kinda doesn’t make it easy for you. Normally even the most intricately plotted classic-series Doctor Who story will at least work superficially as an adventure story, but – even with a ticking clock, a giant monster and a madman in charge of a colonial base – Kinda is clearly more […]
Doctor Who A-Z #117: Four to Doomsday (1982)
Terence Dudley makes his screenwriting debut with Four to Doomsday, but he’s been around for a while. I’m not just referring to him directing Meglos last season, although it is an odd quirk that Season Nineteen contains no less than two writers who started out as directors the year before. […]
Outside the Blue Box: Truckload (2025)
Whenever I’ve done an article for Outside The Blue Box, it tends to be a project where its creator uses Doctor Who to raise their profile. Sallie Aprahamian directed some ambitious episodes of Doctor Who after cutting her teeth on Wolfblood, Jamie Childs cast his partner Jenna Coleman in his […]
Doctor Who A-Z #116: Castrovalva (1982)
One of the morbid fascinations of looking over old Doctor Who is assessing all the moments when the series could have ended – the 1989 cancellation, obviously, and the 1985 hiatus. It could have stopped when William Hartnell left the role, and conversations about the wisdom of keeping the show […]
Panic Fest 2026 – Online Shorts Roundup
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from attending and writing about horror film festivals over the past few years, it’s that the short film selections often end up being more interesting and memorable than the features. I have a real soft spot for short-form horror fiction, and I frequently find […]
DEBONE (Panic Fest 2026)
Is there something in the water at Korean universities? Before Debone kicks off, it states on screen that it’s the work of a remarkable student, which basically means that writer/director Lee Dae-han’s debut feature is of such a high standard that even his old teachers at university applaud his work, […]