When Channel 5 brought back the legendary anthology drama strand Play for Today in 2025, the anticipation was tempered by a fear that it couldn’t live up to the original run’s standards. “Standards”, though, meant different things for different people. Some were concerned a modern Play for Today couldn’t match […]
Outside the Blue Box
Outside the Blue Box: The Divine Comedy (1989- )
The process of producing a television show as complex as Doctor Who is no mean feat. Once the scripts are written, the locations scouted, the sets built and the tea bags purchased, the actors begin their job of bringing the stories to life. Another aspect of production, arguably one of […]
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. […]
Outside the Blue Box: TravelWise (2000)
TravelWise is a video drama produced for Key Stage 2 and 3 schoolchildren by Essex County Council in the year 2000. Across four short episodes, we witness a soap opera style drama play out involving families and neighbours living in a suburban street. This would then be followed up by […]
Outside of the Blue Box: Annette Badland
Saying ‘Doctor Who’ and ‘Eastenders’ in the same sentence sends a shiver down old Whovians spines. While the debate rages over whether ‘Dimensions In Time’ in all its hard swipe cut aways and craggy faced companions’ glory is canon or not (I promise not to mention it again), the two […]
Outside the Blue Box: Our Friends In The North (1996)
This series of reviews has led us writers down some very peculiar avenues, ones we perhaps weren’t expecting to take. Personally though, I’ve been using it as an excuse to explore my parameters and start ticking off things I hadn’t seen before (not that you’d notice since over on Patreon […]
Outside the Blue Box: The Last Detective (2003)
Peter Davison arguably defied being typecast as the Doctor more than most of the actors who took on the role. By fluke or canny strategy, Davison managed to quickly and cleanly shed all vestiges of the Time Lord, ensuring that he maintained a long and varied career after leaving the […]
Outside the Blue Box: Murder Most Horrid (1991-1999)
The Great British anthology series has had many vestiges throughout the broadcast years. Often finding a home in the mysterious or macabre genres, horror anthologies and the BBC go together like strawberries and cream and arguably peaked in the 70’s with series like Dead of Night and Supernatural, individually produced […]
Outside the Blue Box: Casualty: Results by Ben Aaronovitch
To understand where Casualty was in 1990, we must first go back in time one year earlier, to 1989. The fourth season of the hit BBC medical drama, which had begun life three years earlier in 1986, saw the show undergo some changes. The original producer, Geraint Morris, had left […]