Christopher Bailey, making his return here after writing the best story of the preceding season, is one of the most singular talents to write for Doctor Who. Before we start gushing about his genius, then, it’s probably worthwhile to note that he’s been extremely fortunate with his collaborators. His scripts […]
Doctor Who
Doctor Who A-Z #123: Arc of Infinity (1983)
Season Twenty is an odd one in Peter Davison’s run. There isn’t a story like The Caves of Androzani or Earthshock which fans at the time rallied around; the best script by a mile is Christopher Bailey’s Snakedance, and Bailey’s vision of Doctor Who was simply too personal and strange […]
Outside the Blue Box: Tip Toe (2026)
The following article contains spoilers for Tip Toe. You’re not wrong, I chose an interesting time to write an article about Russell T Davies. The man who, in 2005, brought Doctor Who back to life might have turned out to be, in 2025, the man who killed it off again. […]
Outside the Blue Box: Mark Sheppard in Supernatural (2009-17)
Don’t you just love it when we get a TV crossover? The Jetsons meet The Flintstones, The Simpsons meets Family Guy, Friends meets ER! As Whovians, it’s incredibly rare that we’re treated to such an event, given the Whoniverse is so gigantically huge already, looping in other TV shows feels […]
Doctor Who A-Z #122: Time-Flight (1982)
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 […]
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. […]