Doctor Who has existed for just under sixty-two years, and in all that time it has produced one (one) era which all fans agree is really good. That’s part of its strength: every stage of the show is someone’s golden age and someone else’s nadir. You would struggle, though, to find […]
Doctor Who
Doctor Who A-Z #84: The Brain of Morbius (1976)
Aside from the grand experiment of The Deadly Assassin, most of the scripts Robert Holmes was primarily responsible for during his time as script editor were heavy reworkings of other writers – John Lucarotti in The Ark in Space, Lewis Griefer in Pyramids of Mars, Robert Banks Stewart in The […]
Doctor Who A-Z #83: The Android Invasion (1975)
At the height of his early success, Terry Nation left Doctor Who to try and launch an American TV series based on the Daleks. He returned for the show’s tenth anniversary in 1973, when he wrote Planet of the Daleks, then followed it up a year later with Death to the Daleks. The most […]
Doctor Who A-Z #82: Pyramids of Mars (1975)
Pyramids of Mars is one of those stories so enshrined in fan mythology as one of the series’ maximum highs that it can be hard to think clearly about it. When asked about it, we know exactly what to say: this is a great serial because it has a darker […]
Doctor Who A-Z #81: Planet of Evil (1975)
Season Thirteen is the first of two consecutive seasons where Louis Marks will turn in a very good script that nevertheless gets ignored because of all the consensus classics around it. Perhaps this is why he’ll leave the show next year, twelve years after his first story was broadcast. That […]
Doctor Who A-Z #80: Terror of the Zygons (1975)
Terror of the Zygons is a rarity among classic Who stories, in that its masterpiece status is most often defended by pointing to its visuals. Classic-era Doctor Who fans, who normally find themselves in the position of declaring a haughty disinterest in special effects, have been known to go into […]
Outside the Blue Box (1970) The Vampire Lovers
WARNING: This article contains spoilers for the Doctor Who Series 15 two-part finale ‘Wish World / The Reality War’. Picture this: the year is 1970, and Hammer Films – at one point, the most iconic and beloved horror film studio in the world – are in a state of turmoil. Anthony Hinds, the […]
Doctor Who A-Z #79: Revenge of the Cybermen (1975)
Revenge of the Cybermen is a real oddity. It’s not an oddity because it’s the only Tom Baker Cyberman story, or even because it’s the only 1970s Cyberman story, though these are the clearest symptoms of its true underlying strangeness. And it’s not odd simply because it’s a Patrick Troughton […]
Doctor Who A-Z #78: Genesis of the Daleks (1975)
Part of the fascination I have with things that run as long as Doctor Who has is that it repeats; to you, it might be mere repetition, to me it’s an endlessly fascinating series of variations that shapes the story. There may be, for instance, a parallel universe where only the nerdiest […]
Doctor Who A-Z #77: The Sontaran Experiment (1975)
In retrospect, it’s hard to believe anyone was ever nervous about Tom Baker taking over as the Doctor. At the time, though, Jon Pertwee was both the longest-running and most popular Doctor, so producer Philip Hinchcliffe and script editor Robert Holmes came up with a number of strategies to ease […]