The history of Doctor Who is remarkably well-documented, and these reviews would be nowhere without the generations of scholarship that taught us all how our favourite show was made. Yet sometimes the history of a story can get in the way of appreciating what it actually is. We are told […]
Doctor Who
Doctor Who A-Z #98: The Ribos Operation (1978)
Before I started this rewatch project, I always found it funny that Robert Holmes, Doctor Who‘s most beloved writer, wrote two Patrick Troughton stories nobody likes before suddenly becoming a genius as soon as the calendar flipped over to 1970. But actually sitting down and watching The Krotons and The […]
Outside the Blue Box: Antigone (National Theatre Live, 2012)
When asked about the possibility of a multi-Doctor story, Jodie Whittaker has always expressed a desire to see her Thirteenth Doctor team up with the Ninth, as played by Christopher Eccleston. For his part, Eccleston has said that “The father of us all is William Hartnell, but the greatest Doctor […]
Outside the Blue Box: Crooked House (2008)
Twenty years ago, viewers tuned in to watch the very first televised episode of Doctor Who penned by Mark Gatiss – a writer and actor who was, at the time (and to some, perhaps still), best known for his work on the macabre cult comedy series The League of Gentlemen. […]
Doctor Who A-Z #97: The Invasion of Time (1978)
By Season Fifteen, Tom Baker’s Doctor is moving towards his most consistently anti-authoritarian characterisation – someone who, just two seasons ago, sulked at the idea of involving himself in Sarn’s politics now seems to hop out of the TARDIS and ask where the nearest workers’ uprising is. As such, there’s […]
Doctor Who A-Z #96: Underworld (1978)
We Doctor Who fans like to pretend we’re a special breed, unswayed by the fancy special effects that buy the affections of other SF and fantasy fans. To some extent this is true. Nobody has ever argued that The Caves of Androzani is not a classic story just because it briefly features a ropey […]
Doctor Who A-Z #95: The Sun Makers (1977)
I dunno, they’re making it too political these days, aren’t they? Making all the villains capitalists, and all the companions have to be “woke” and empowered. I prefer the good old days, when the Doctor and his cheerfully murderous friends landed on a planet owned by a mining corporation so […]
Doctor Who A-Z #94: Image of the Fendahl (1977)
It does go slightly against the principle of this series, but sometimes it’s worth taking a Doctor Who story out of the context of its season or era and looking at it in isolation. Image of the Fendahl is a case in point. The most consistently overlooked of Chris Boucher’s […]
Doctor Who A-Z #93: The Invisible Enemy (1977)
The American conceptual artist Marcus Rakowitz has a piece called The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist, which honestly seems a bit harsh. If you lost The Invisible Enemy you’d lose one of the precious few stories with the Fourth Doctor and Leela, one of the show’s most fascinating, rewarding and […]
Doctor Who A-Z #92: Horror of Fang Rock (1977)
There are some eras of classic Doctor Who – notably the very first and the very last Doctors of the classic era – which lend themselves surprisingly well to being watched from a modern perspective, where main characters are expected to have multi-season arcs. Then there’s the Tom Baker years, […]