Asked what the appeal of Doctor Who was, Jon Pertwee said that other science fiction shows will give you monsters on other planets, or on spaceships, but in this show you might find “a Yeti sitting on your loo in Tooting Bec”. When Pertwee was announced as the Doctor, he took part […]
Pop Culture
Doctor Who A-Z #40: The Enemy of the World (1967-8)
The Enemy of the World is famously the odd man out in Season Five’s run of monster-driven stories. That’s true, but how unusual is it as part of the Second Doctor’s era in general? Troughton’s second story, after all, was the last of the ‘pure’ historicals, while it’s seldom noted […]
Doctor Who A-Z #39: The Ice Warriors (1967)
There’s a case you could make against the Second Doctor’s era, that it represents a retreat from the wide-open possibilities of the Hartnell years into formula. Previously, the series could and did go from telling a story about a planet inhabited by giant psychic ants to a sober drama about […]
Doctor Who A-Z #38: The Abominable Snowmen (1967)
Back in the William Hartnell days, Doctor Who managed to get around the world on the wings of audience expectations: people in the early 1960s didn’t mind if a television serial used a soundstage with a painted backdrop to represent an Aztec temple. Even by 1967, though, audiences were starting […]
Doctor Who A-Z #37: The Tomb of the Cybermen (1967)
There’s a very slight oddity in The Tomb of the Cybermen which is all but ignored now, and which is hard to appreciate unless you’re watching these stories in order. It has to do with the Cybermats, the weird robot rat-bugs the Cybermen use as henchmen. This is their first […]
Succubus (London International Fantastic Film Festival 2024)
Nobody is proud to be on Hinge – least of all Chris (Brendan Bradley), a new father and the conflicted protagonist of Succubus. The film is nothing if not reminiscent of giants of the horror genre in its exploration of cultural unease around sex and vulnerability. In Succubus, R.J. Daniel […]
Outside the Blue Box: A Christmas Carol (2000)
AAll Doctor Who fans know that it’s canonically true that the Doctor knows Charles Dickens. After all, they defeated the Gelth together on Christmas Eve 1869. But here’s a question no one ever asked: I wonder what Charles Dickens would have made of EastEnders? Moreover, can comparisons be drawn between […]
2024 in Review: A Mad Year For Cinema, and For Me
In 2022, I did a roundup of my favourite films of the year, even though I’d only managed to see a small handful of new films that came out. Last year I did the same, and I was fairly proud that I’d managed to see nearly 20 films at the […]
King Baby (London International Fantastic Film Festival 2024) A Royally Horny Romp
Patriarchy, masculinity, the royal establishment, British theatre duo Kit Redstone and Arran Shearing take it all on in this bizarre lo-fi period comedy. The story takes place in a desolate castle ruin in France, the time period is left ambiguous though. In this kingdom live the King, his loyal Servant… […]
Self Revolutionary Cinematic Struggle (London International Fantastic Film Festival 2024)
Gakuryu Ishii’s second movie of the year is half a dozen things at once, with so much going on that it has taken me a week—after its premiere at the inaugural London International Fantastic Film Festival —to begin processing everything it offers. This menagerie exemplifies the ethos I yearn for […]