I think I love the flour the most. The apparent hijacking of a human ship by alien mercenaries, the one that kick-starts this story and nearly causes a war between solar systems, isn’t a raid on a ship carrying space marines or photon torpedoes or anything like that. It’s an […]
Pop Culture
Doctor Who A-Z #66: Carnival of Monsters (1973)
Carnival of Monsters seems to be the Third Doctor story that people who don’t like the Third Doctor’s era as a whole can get behind. There’s a very obvious reason for this, and like all very obvious reasons it isn’t quite right. Fans will tell you that its distinctive quality […]
Doctor Who A-Z #65: The Three Doctors (1972-3)
We catch our hero in the eye of the storm. After a career beginning in the 1960s, the new decade has been phenomenally good to him so far. A new incarnation has seen him soar to even greater heights of popularity, discarding some of the quainter fringes of his Sixties […]
Doctor Who A-Z #64: The Time Monster (1972)
Doctor Who’s ninth season began with a story that anticipated Marvel’s X-Men and ends with this, a story that anticipates Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace. The dialogue about “women’s lib” between the Master’s unwitting lackeys Ingram and Hyde has the nose-bruising glibness of a classic Rick Dagless/Liz Wool interaction, and the first […]
Doctor Who A-Z #63: The Mutants (1972)
Everyone knows The Mutants is a bad story. Ever since it was being filmed, when Jon Pertwee first noticed the similarity between the opening scene and Monty Python‘s “It’s…” man, people have been making fun of it. In Doctor Who Magazine‘s Mighty 200 poll, The Time Monster was the only […]
Doctor Who A-Z #62: The Sea Devils (1972)
We’re exactly halfway through Jon Pertwee’s tenure as Doctor now. I’ve had plenty of opportunities to disagree with the consensus on this period of the show so far, and there’ll be even more of that in the second half of Pertwee’s run. Mostly I’ve disagreed in a way which favours […]
Doctor Who A-Z #61: The Curse of Peladon (1972)
Jon Pertwee-era Doctor Who looks and feels very different to William Hartnell-era Doctor Who, and yet behind the scenes there’s still a surprising amount of shared personnel. This serial, for instance, is written by Brian Hayles, who’s been working on the show since 1966’s The Celestial Toymaker. He’s had a […]
Doctor Who A-Z #60: Day of the Daleks (1972)
Steven Moffat once cited The Rescue as one of the most influential stories in Doctor Who‘s history, arguing that while we commemorate the debut of a new Doctor, companion or monster we rarely remember the stories which introduce new ideas, or a different type of story that can be told within this wide-open […]
Slice of Lynch: Eraserhead (1977) David Lynch’s Masterpiece Still Enthralls
Let’s Rock! Decoding David Lynch, One Film At a Time – Part One It’s been a few weeks since David Lynch passed, and this is the first time I have been able to bring myself to watch one of his films. I mulled it over for a long while, trying […]
House Of Ashes (Glasgow Frightfest 2025)
It never ceases to amaze me how genre cinema can adapt itself to anything. From sociopolitical melodrama to generations divided, whether it be Science Fiction or Horror, there are reasons why so many of us are drawn off the beaten path and into the spooky woods of the cinematic landscape. […]